n and thus disarmed. The majority of the comic apparitions,
curiously enough, are masculine. You don't often find women wraithed in
smiles--perhaps because they resent being made ridiculous, even after
they're dead. Or maybe the reason lies in the fact that men have
written most of the comic or satiric ghost stories, and have
chivalrously spared the gentler shades. And there are very few funny
child-ghosts--you might almost say none, in comparison with the number
of grown-ups. The number of ghost children of any or all types is small
proportionately--perhaps because it seems an unnatural thing for a child
to die under any circumstances, while to make of him a butt for jokes
would be unfeeling. There are a few instances, as in the case of the
ghost baby mentioned later, but very few.

Ancient ghosts were a long-faced lot. They didn't know how to play at
all. They had been brought up in stern repression of frivolities as
haunters--no matter how sportive they may have been in life--and in turn
they cowed mortals into a servile submission. No doubt they thought of
men and women as mere youngsters that must be taught their place, since
any living person, however senile, would be thought juvenile compared
with a timeless spook.

But in these days of individualism and radical liberalism, spooks as
well as mortals are expanding their personalities and indulging in
greater freedom. A ghost can call his shade his own now, and exhibit any
mood he pleases. Even young female wraiths, demanding latchkeys, refuse
to obey the frowning face of the clock, and engage in light-hearted
ebullience to make the ghost of Mrs. Grundy turn a shade paler in
horror. Nowadays haunters have more fun and freedom than the haunted. In
fact, it's money in one's pocket these days to be dead, for ghosts have
no rent problems, and dead men pay no bills. What officer would
willingly pursue a ghostly tenant to his last lodging in order to serve
summons on him? And suppose a ghost brought into court demanded trial by
a jury of his peers? No--manifestly death has compensations not
connected with the consolations of religion.

The marvel is that apparitions were so long in realizing their
possibilities, in improving their advantages. The specters in classic
and medieval literature were malarial, vaporous beings without energy to
do anything but threaten, and mortals never would have trembled with
fear at their frown if they had known how feeble they were. At b