Not exactly the same
thing, but similar phenomena have come my way a number of times since I
went into the business, and I want to tell you there are things in
heaven and earth not dreamt of----”

“Oh, I know all that tommy-rot,” cried Hoyt, angrily, “but when anything
happens I want to know the reason why, and how it is done.”

“All right,” said his employer, “then you might explain why and how the
sun rises.”

But he humored the younger man sufficiently to examine with him the bath
in which the plates were submerged and the plates themselves. All was as
it should be. But the mystery was there and could not be done away with. Hoyt hoped against hope that the friends of the dead woman would somehow
forget about the photographs, but of course the wish was unreasonable,
and one day the daughter appeared and asked to see the photographs of
her mother. “Well, to tell the truth,” stammered Hoyt, “those didn’t come out as
well as we could wish.”

“But let me see them,” persisted the lady. “I’d like to look at them,
anyway.”

[Illustration: “_He showed her the prints._”]

“Well, now,” said Hoyt, trying to be soothing, as he believed it was
always best to be with women--to tell the truth, he was an ignoramus
where women were concerned--“I think it would be better if you didn’t
see them. There are reasons why----” he ambled on like this, stupid man
that he was, and of course the Jewess said she would see those pictures
without any further delay. So poor Hoyt brought them out and placed them in her hand, and then ran
for the water pitcher, and had to be at the bother of bathing her
forehead to keep her from fainting. For what the lady saw was this: Over face and flowers and the head of
the coffin fell a thick veil, the edges of which touched the floor in
some places. It covered the features so well that not a hint of them was
visible. “There was nothing over mother’s face,” cried the lady at length. “Not a thing,” acquiesced Hoyt. “I know, because I had occasion to touch
her face just before I took the picture. I put some of her hair back
from her brow.”

“What does it mean, then?” asked the lady. “You know better than I. There is no explanation in science. Perhaps
there is some in psychology.”

“Well,” said the lady, stammering a little and coloring, “mother was a
good woman, but she always wanted her own way, and she always had it,
too.”

“Yes?”

“And she never would have her picture taken. She didn’t admire herself. She said no one should ever see a picture of hers.”

“So?” said Hoyt, meditatively. “Well, she’s kept her word, hasn’t she?”

The two stood looking at the pictures for a time. Then Hoyt pointed to
the open blaze in the grate. “Throw them in,” he commanded. “Don’t let your father see them--don’t
keep them yourself. They wouldn’t be good things to keep.”

“That’s true enough,” said the lady, slowly. And she threw them in the
fire. Then Virgil Hoyt brought out the plates and broke them before her
eyes. And that was the end of it--except that Hoyt sometimes tells the story
to those who sit beside him when his pipe is lighted. THE GHOST OF A LIVE MAN. We were in the South Atlantic Ocean, in the latitude of the island of
Fernando Norohna, about 40 degrees 12 minutes south, on board the barque
H. G. Johnson, homeward bound from Australia. I was the only passenger,
and we had safely rounded Cape Horn, with the barometer at 28 degrees 18
minutes, and yet had somehow miraculously escaped any extremely heavy
gale--had had light northerly and easterly winds till we reached 20
degrees, and thence the southeast trades were sending us fast on our way
to the equator. I sat on deck smoking my pipe, with a glorious full moon
shedding its bright pathway across the blue waters, and chatting with
the first mate, a man some fifty-eight years of age, who had followed
the sea since he was a boy. For twenty years or more he had been mate or
captain, and many and varied were the experiences he could relate. A
thorough sailor and skillful navigator, he was as honest as the day is
long--had a heart as big as an ox and was an all-round good fellow and
genial companion. Some of his yarns might be taken cum grano salis, yet
he always positively assured me that he “was telling me the truth.” An
account of a voyage that he made in a whaler from the Southern Ocean to
New Bedford seemed to me worthy to be repeated. He had rounded Cape Horn
six times and the Cape of Good Hope twenty-six times, besides making
many trips across the Western Ocean and to South American ports. I give
his account as near as possible in his own words:

“It was in ’71 that I commanded the whaler Mary Jane. We had been out
from home over three years, and had on board a full cargo of whale oil,
besides 2,000 pounds of whalebone, which was then worth $5 per pound. I
also had been fortunate enough to find in a dead whale which we came
across a large quantity of ambergris, and our hearts were all very light
as we began our homeward voyage, and our thoughts all tended to the
hearty welcome which we should receive from wives and sweethearts when
we reached our journey’s end. Many a night as I lay in my berth I had
thought with great pleasure of the amount of money that would be coming
to me from the proceeds of our voyage when we arrived in New Bedford. “I calculated that I had made $12,000 as my share of the proceeds of the
whalebone and oil--to say nothing of the ambergris, which I well knew
would bring at least $20,000, and one-half of which belonged to me. You
can therefore imagine that I was well pleased with myself as we went
bounding along through the southeast trades. We crossed the equator in
longitude 36 and soon after took strong northeast trades, and all was
going as well as I could wish. We had put the ship in perfect order,
painted her inside and out, and you would never have recognized her as
the old whaling ship that had for three years been plying the Southern
Ocean for whales. Never shall I forget an old bull whale that we tackled
about two degrees to the south of Cape Horn--but that is another story,
which I will give you another time. “We had just lost the northeast trades and were entering the Gulf
Stream. I sat in my cabin with my chart on the table before me rolled
up. I had just picked our location on it, and was thinking that in a
week more I should be at home, surrounded by those near and dear to me,
and relating to them the story of my great good fortune. “It was always my custom to work up my latitude and longitude about four
o’clock in the afternoon, and then after supper pick off her position on
the chart, have a smoke and perhaps just before retiring a nip of grog,
and then at 8.30 o’clock, as regular as a clock, I would turn in. “I am a great smoker, and this day I had been smoking all the afternoon,
besides having had two or three nips. We had a dog on board whom we
called ‘Bosun,’ who had been out with us all the voyage, and who was
afraid of nothing.