est a
revenant could only rattle a rusty skeleton, or shake a moldy shroud, or
clank a chain--but as mortals cowered before his demonstrations, he
didn't worry. If he wished to evoke the extreme of anguish from his
host, he raised a menacing arm and uttered a windy word or two. Now it
takes more than that to produce a panic. The up-to-date ghost keeps his
skeleton in a garage or some place where it is cleaned and oiled and
kept in good working order. The modern wraith has sold his sheet to the
old clo'es man, and dresses as in life. Now the ghost has learned to
have a variety of good times, and he can make the living squirm far
more satisfyingly than in the past. The spook of to-day enjoys making
his haunted laugh even while he groans in terror. He knows that there's
no weapon, no threat, in horror, to be compared with ridicule.

Think what a solemn creature the Gothic ghost was! How little
originality and initiative he showed and how dependent he was on his own
atmosphere for thrills! His sole appeal was to the spinal column. The
ghost of to-day touches the funny bone as well. He adds new horrors to
being haunted, but new pleasures also. The modern specter can be a
joyous creature on occasion, as he can be, when he wishes, fearsome
beyond the dreams of classic or Gothic revenant. He has a keen sense of
humor and loves a good joke on a mortal, while he can even enjoy one on
himself. Though his fun is of comparatively recent origin--it's less
than a century since he learned to crack a smile--the laughing ghost is
very much alive and sportively active. Some of these new spooks are
notoriously good company. Many Americans there are to-day who would
court being haunted by the captain and crew of Richard Middleton's Ghost
Ship that landed in a turnip field and dispensed drink till they
demoralized the denizens of village and graveyard alike. After that show
of spirits, the turnips in that field tasted of rum, long after the
ghost ship had sailed away into the blue.

The modern spook is possessed not only of humor but of a caustic satire
as well. His jest is likely to have more than one point to it, and he
can haunt so insidiously, can make himself so at home in his host's
study or bedroom that a man actually welcomes a chat with him--only to
find out too late that his human foibles have been mercilessly flayed.
Pity the poor chap in H. C. Bunner's story, _The Interfering Spook_, for
instance, who was visited nightly by a sp