Chapter X: Story-Tellers' Night

It was Story-tellers' Night at the houseboat, and the best talkers of Hades were impressed into the service. Doctor Johnson was made chairman of the evening.

"Put him in the chair," said Raleigh. "That's the only way to keep him from telling a story himself. If he starts in on a tale he'll make it a serial sure as fate, but if you make him the medium through which other story-tellers are introduced to the club he'll be finely epigrammatic. He can be very short and sharp when he's talking about somebody else. Personality is his forte."

"Great scheme," said Diogenes, who was chairman of the entertainment committee. "The nights over here are long, but if Johnson started on a story they'd have to reach twice around eternity and halfway back to give him time to finish all he had to say."

"He's not very witty, in my judgment," said Carlyle, who since his arrival in the other world has manifested some jealousy of Solomon and Doctor Johnson.

"That's true enough," said Raleigh; "but he's strong, and he's bound to say something that will put the audience in sympathy with the man that he introduces, and that's half the success of a Story-tellers' Night. I've told stories myself. If your audience doesn't sympathize with you you'd be better off at home putting the baby to bed."

And so it happened. Doctor Johnson was made chairman, and the evening came. The Doctor was in great form. A list of the story- tellers had been sent him in advance, and he was prepared. The audience was about as select a one as can be found in Hades. The doors were thrown open to the friends of the members, and the smoke- furnace had been filled with a very superior quality of Arcadian mixture which Scott had brought back from a haunting-trip to the home of "The Little Minister," at Thrums.

"Friends and fellow-spooks," the Doctor began, when all were seated on the visionary camp-stools--which, by the way, are far superior to those in use in a world of realities, because they do not creak in the midst of a fine point demanding absolute silence for appreciation--"I do not know why I have been chosen to preside over this gathering of phantoms; it is the province of the presiding officer on occasions of this sort to say pleasant things, which he does not necessarily endorse, about the sundry persons who are to do the story-telling. Now, I suppose you all know me pretty well by this time. If there is anybody who doesn't, I'll be glad to have him presented after the formal work of the evening is over, and if I don't like him I'll tell him so. You know that if I can be counted upon for any one thing it is candor, and if I hurt the feelings of any of these individuals whom I introduce to-night, I want them distinctly to understand that it is not because I love them less, but that I love truth more. With this--ah--blanket apology, as