however, soon
transformed to anger and indignation. The proprietor of the health
resort, having found that the specters from his place had been sold,
claimed a rebate upon the contract price equal to the value of the
modified ghosts transferred to my possession. This, of course, I could
not allow. I wrote, demanding immediate payment according to our
agreement, and this was peremptorily refused. The manager's letter was
insulting in the extreme. The Pied Piper of Hamelin was not worse
treated than I felt myself to be; so, like the piper, I determined to
have my revenge.

I got out the twelve tanks of Waterloo ghost-hash from the storerooms,
and treated them with radium for two days. These I shipped to the
Catskills billed as hydrogen gas. Then, accompanied by two trustworthy
assistants, I went to the sanatorium and preferred my demand for payment
in person. I was ejected with contumely. Before my hasty exit, however,
I had the satisfaction of noticing that the building was filled with
patients. Languid ladies were seated in wicker chairs upon the piazzas,
and frail anemic girls filled the corridors. It was a hospital of
nervous wrecks whom the slightest disturbance would throw into a panic.
I suppressed all my finer feelings of mercy and kindness and smiled
grimly as I walked back to the village.

That night was black and lowering, fitting weather for the pandemonium I
was about to turn loose. At ten o'clock, I loaded a wagon with the tanks
of compressed cohorts, and, muffled in heavy overcoats, we drove to the
sanatorium. All was silent as we approached; all was dark. The wagon
concealed in a grove of pines, we took out the tanks one by one, and
placed them beneath the ground-floor windows. The sashes were easily
forced open, and raised enough to enable us to insert the rubber tubes
connected with the iron reservoirs. At midnight everything was ready.

I gave the word, and my assistants ran from tank to tank, opening the
stopcocks. With a hiss as of escaping steam the huge vessels emptied
themselves, vomiting forth clouds of vapor, which, upon contact with the
air, coagulated into strange shapes as the white of an egg does when
dropped into boiling water. The rooms became instantly filled with
dismembered shades of men and horses seeking wildly to unite themselves
with their proper parts.

Legs ran down the corridors, seeking their respective trunks, arms
writhed wildly reaching for missing bodies, heads rolled hit