No More Learning

Each seated on his favourite post,
We chumped and chawed the buttered toast
They gave us for our tea. "

"That story is in print! " I cried.
"Don't say it's not, because
It's known as well as Bradshaw's Guide! "
(The Ghost uneasily replied
He hardly thought it was).

"It's not in Nursery Rhymes? And yet
I almost think it is--
'Three little Ghosteses' were set
'On posteses,' you know, and ate
Their 'buttered toasteses. '

"I have the book; so, if you doubt it--"
I turned to search the shelf.
"Don't stir! " he cried. "We'll do without it;
I now remember all about it;
I wrote the thing myself.

"It came out in a 'Monthly,' or
At least my agent said it did:
Some literary swell, who saw
It, thought it seemed adapted for
The Magazine he edited.

"My father was a Brownie, Sir;
My mother was a Fairy.
The notion had occurred to her,
The children would be happier,
If they were taught to vary.

"The notion soon became a craze;
And, when it once began, she
Brought us all out in different ways--
One was a Pixy, two were Fays,
Another was a Banshee;

"The Fetch and Kelpie went to school,
And gave a lot of trouble;
Next came a Poltergeist and Ghoul,
And then two Trolls (which broke the rule),
A Goblin, and a Double--

"(If that's a snuff-box on the shelf,"
He added with a yawn,
"I'll take a pinch)--next came an Elf,
And then a Phantom (that's myself),
And last, a Leprechaun.
"One day, some Spectres chanced to call,
Dressed in the usual white:
I stood and watched them in the hall,
And couldn't make them out at all,
They seemed so strange a sight.

[Illustration]

"I wondered what on earth they were,
That looked all head and sack;
But Mother told me not to stare,
And then she twitched me by the hair,
And punched me in the back.

"Since then I've often wished that I
Had been a Spectre born.
But what's the use? " (He heaved a sigh).
"_They_ are the ghost-nobility,
And look on _us_ with scorn.

"My phantom-life was soon begun:
When I was barely six,
I went out with an older one--
And just at first I thought it fun,
And learned a lot of tricks.

"I've haunted dungeons, castles, towers--
Wherever I was sent:
I've often sat and howled for hours,
Drenched to the skin with driving showers,
Upon a battlement.

"It's quite old-fashioned now to groan
When you begin to speak:
This is the newest thing in tone--"
And here (it chilled me to the bone)
He gave an _awful_ squeak.

"Perhaps," he added, "to _your_ ear
That sounds an easy thing?
Try it yourself, my little dear!
It took _me_ something like a year,
With constant practising.

"And when you've learned to squeak, my man
And caught the double sob,
You're pretty much where you began:
Just try and gibber if you can!
That's something _like_ a job!

"_I've_ tried it, and can only say
I'm sure you couldn't do it, e-
ven if you practised night and day,
Unless you have a turn that way,
And natural ingenuity.

"Shakspeare I think it is who treats
Of Ghosts, in days of old,
Who 'gibbered in the Roman streets,'
Dressed, if you recollect, in sheets--
They must have found it cold.