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Speaker 1: A Ghost's Tail by Mark Twain. I took a large

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room far up Broadway, in a huge old building whose

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upper stories had been wholly unoccupied for years until I came.

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The place had long been given up to dust and cobwebs,

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to solitude and silence. I seemed groping among the tombs

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and invading the privacy of the dead. That first night,

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I climbed up to my quarters for the first time

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in my life, A superstitious dread came over me, and

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as I turned a dark angle of the stairway and

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an invisible cobweb swung its lazy woof in my face

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and clung there. I shuddered as one who had encountered

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a phantom. I was glad enough when I reached my

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room and locked out the mold and the darkness. A

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cheery fire was burning and the great, and I sat

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down before it with a comforting sense of relief. For

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two hours I sat there, thinking of by gone times,

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recalling old scenes and summoning half forgotten faces out of

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the mists of the past, listening in fancy to voices

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that long ago grew silent for all time, and to

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once familiar songs that nobody sings now, And as my

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reverie softened down to a saddern sadder pathos, the shrieking

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of the winds outside softened to a wail, The angry

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beating of the rain against the panes diminished to a

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tranquil patter, and one by one the noises in the

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street subsided, until the hurrying footsteps of the last belated

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straggler died away in the distance and left no sound behind.

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The fire had burned low, a sense of loneliness crept

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over me. I arose and undressed, moving on tiptoe about

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the room, doing stealthily what I had to do, as

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if I were environed by sleeping enemies, whose slumbers it

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would be fatal to break. I covered up in bed

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and lay listening to the rain and wind and the

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faint creaking of distant shutters, till they lulled me to sleep.

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I slept profoundly, but how long I do not know.

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All at once I found myself awake and filled with

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a shuddering expectancy. All was still all but my own heart.

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I could hear it beat Presently. The bed clothes began

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to slip away, slowly toward the foot of the bed,

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as if someone were pulling them. I could not stir,

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I could not speak. Still, the blanket slipped deliberately away

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till my breast was uncovered. Then, with a great effort,

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I seized them and drew them over my head. I waited, listened, waited.

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Once more, that steady pull began, and once more I

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lay torpid a century of dragging seconds till my breast

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was naked again. At last, I roused my energies and

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snatched the covers back to their place, and held them

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with a strong grip. I waited by and by, I

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felt a faint hug, and took a fresh grip. The

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tug strengthened to a steady strain. It grew stronger and stronger.

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My whole parted, and for the third time, the blanket

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slid away. I grown, an answering grown came from the

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foot of the bed. Beaded drops of sweat stood upon

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my forehead. I was more dead than alive. Presently I

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heard a heavy footstep in my room, the step of

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an elephant. It seemed to me it was not like

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anything human, but it was moving from me. There was

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relief in that I heard it approach the door, pass

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out without moving bolt or lock, and wander away among

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the dismal corridors, straining the floors and joists till they

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creaked again as it passed, and then silence rained once more.

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When my excitement had calmed, I said to myself, this

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is a dream, simply a hideous dream. And so I

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lay thinking it over until I convinced myself that it

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was a dream. And then a comforting laugh relaxed my lips,

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and I was happy again. I got up and struck

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a light, and when I found that the locks and

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bolts were just as I had left them, another soothing

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laugh welled in my heart and rippled from my lips.

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I took my pipe and lit it, and I was

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just sitting down before the fire, when down went the

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pipe out of my nerveless fingers. The blood forsook my cheeks,

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and my placid breathing was cut short with a gasp.

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In the ashes on the hearth, side by side with

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my own bare footprint was another so vast that, in comparison,

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mind was but an infants. Then I had had a visitor,

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and the elephant tread was explained. I put out the

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light and returned to bed poles with THEA. I lay

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a long time, peering into the darkness and listening. Then

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I heard a grating noise overhead, like the dragging of

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a heavy body across the floor. Then the thrown down

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of the body, and the shaking of my windows in

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response to the concussion. In distant parts of the building,

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I heard the muffled slamming of doors. I heard, at

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intervals stealthy footsteps creeping in and out among the corridors,

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and up and down the stairs. Sometimes these noises approached

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my door, hesitated, and went away again. I heard the

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clanking of chains. Faintly, and remote passages listened while the

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clanking grew near, while it weirdly climbed the stairways, marking

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each move by the loose surplus of chain that fell

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with an accented rattle upon each succeeding step. As the

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goblin that bore it advanced, I heard muttered sentences, half

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uttered screams that seemed smothered violently, and the swish of

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invisible garments, the rush of invisible wings. Then I became

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conscious that my chamber was invaded, that I was not alone.

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I heard sighs and breathings about my bed and mysterious whisperings.

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Three little spheres of soft phosphorescent light appeared on the

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ceiling directly over my head, clung and glowed there a moment,

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and then dropped two of them upon my face and

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one upon the pillow. They spattered liquidly and felt warm.

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Intuition told me that they had turned to gouts of

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blood as they fell. I needed no light to satisfy

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myself of that. Then I saw pallid faces, dimly luminous

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and white, uplifted hands floating bodiless in the air, floating

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a moment, and then disappeared. The whispering ceased, and the

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voices and the sounds and all a solemn stillness followed.

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I waited and listened. I felt that I must have

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light or die. I was weak with fear. I slowly

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raised myself toward a sitting posture, and my face came

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in contact with a clammy hand. All strength went from me, apparently,

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and I fell back like a stricken invalid. Then I

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heard the rustle of a garment. It seemed to pass

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to the door and go out. When everything was still

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once more, I crept out of bed, sick, and feeble,

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and lit the gas with a hand that trembled as

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if it were aged with one hundred years. The light

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brought some little cheer to my spirits. I sat down

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and fell into a dreary contemplation of that great footprint

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in the ashes. By and by, its outlines began to

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waver and grow dim. I glanced up, and the broad

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gas flame was slowly wilting away. In the same moment

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I heard that elephant teen tread again. I noted its approach,

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nearer and nearer along the musty halls, and dimmer and

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dim The light waned. The tread reached my very door

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and paused. The light had dwindled to a sickly blue,

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and all things about me lay in a spectral twilight.

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The door did not open, and yet I felt a

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faint gust of air fan my cheek, and presently was

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conscious of a huge, cloudy presence before me. I watched

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it with fascinated eyes. A pale glow stole over the thing. Gradually,

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its cloudy folds took shape. An arm appeared, then legs,

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then a body, and last a great sad face looked

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out of the vapor, stripped of its filmy housens, naked,

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muscular and calmly, the majestic Cardiff giant loomed above me.

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I said, why is it nobody but you? Do you

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know I have been scared to death for the last

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two or three hours. Oh, I am most honestly glad

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to see you. I wish I had a chair here here.

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Don't try to sit down in that thing. But it

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was too late. He was in it before I could

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stop him, and down he went. I never saw a

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chair shivered, so in my life, stop, stop, you'll ruin it.

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Too late Again there was another crash, and another chair

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was resolved into its original elements, confound it. Haven't you

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got any judgment at all? Do you want to ruin

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all the furniture on the place? Here? Here? You petrified fool?

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But it was no use. Before I could arrest him,

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he had sat down on the bed and it was

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a melancholy ruin. Now what sort of a way is

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that to do? First you come lumbering about the place,

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bringing a legion of vegamond goblins along with you to

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worry me to death, and then when I overlook an

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indelicacy of costume which would not be tolerated anywhere by

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cultivated people, except in a respectable theater, and not even

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there if the nudity were of your sex. You repay

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me by reckoning all the furniture you can find to

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sit down on. And why will you? You damage yourself

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as much as you do me. You have broken off

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the end of your spinal column and littered up the

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floor with chips of your arms, till the place looks

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like a marble yard. You ought to be ashamed of yourself.

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You are big enough to know better. Well, I will

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not break anymore furniture. What am I to rule? I

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have not had a chunced to sit down for a

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centurey And the tears came into his eyes, poor devil,

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I said, I should not have been so harsh with you,

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and you are an orphan too, no doubt. But sit

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down on the floor here. Nothing else can stand your weight,

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And besides, we cannot be sociable with you away up

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there above me. I want you down where I can

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perch on this high Countain house stool and gossip with

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you face to face. So he sat down on the

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floor and lit a pipe which I gave him, threw

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one of my red blankets over his shoulders, inverted my

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sitz bath on his head helmet fashion, and made himself

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picturesque and comfortable. Then he crossed his ankles while I

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renewed the fire, and exposed the flat, honeycombed bottoms of

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his prodigious feet to the grateful warmth. What is the

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matter with the bottom of your feet and the back

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of your legs that they are gouged up so infernel

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shild blades. I caught them clear up to the back

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of my head and roosting out there Undernoule's form. But

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I love the place. I love it as one loves

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his old home. Hmm. There is no peace for me

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like the piece I feel when I am there. We

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talked along for half an hour, and then I noticed

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that he looked tired and spoke of it tired, He said, well,

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I should think so, and now I will tell you

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all about it, since you have treated me so well.

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I am the spirit of the petrified man that lies

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across the street there in the museum. I am the

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ghost of the cartiff giant. I can have no rest,

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no peace, till they have given that poor body burial again. Now,

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what was the most natural thing for me to do

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to make men satisfy this wish, terrify them into it,

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haunt the place where the body lay. So I haunted

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the museum night after night. I even got other spirits

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to help me, but it did no good, for nobody

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ever came to the museum at midnight. Then it occurred

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to me to come over the way and haunt this

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place a little. I felt that if I ever got

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a hearing, I must succeed, for I had the most

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efficient company that perdition could furnish. Night after night, we

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have shivered around through these mildewed halls, dragging the chains, groaning, whispering,

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tramping up and downstairs till to tell you the truth,

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I am almost worn out. But when I saw a

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light in your room tonight, I roused my energies again

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and went at it with a deal of the old freshness.

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But I'm tired out, entirely fagged out. Oh give me,

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I beseech you give me some hope. I lit off

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my perch in a burst of excitement and exclaimed, this

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transcends everything, everything that ever did occur. Why, you poor

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blundering old fossil, you have had all your trouble for nothing.

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You have been haunting a plaster cast of yourself. The

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real Cardiff Giant is in Albany. A fact, the original

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fraud was ingeniously and fraudfully duplicated and exhibited in New

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York as the only genuine Cardiff Giant, to the unspeakable

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disgust of the owners of the real colossus at the

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very same time that the latter was drawing crowds at

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a museum. Is Olbany confounded, don't you know your own remains?

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I never saw such an eloquent look of shame, of

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pitiable humiliation overspread a countenance before the petrified man rose

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slowly to his feet and said, honestly, is that true?

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As true as I am sitting here. He took the

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pot from his mouth and laid it on the mantle,

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then stood irresolute a moment unconsciously from old habit, thrust

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in his hands where his pantaloon pockets should have been,

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and meditatively dropping his chin on his breast, and finally saying, well,

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I never felt so absurd before. The petrified man has

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sold everybody else, and now the mean fraud has ended

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by selling its own ghost. My son, if there is

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any charity left in your heart for a poor, friendless

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phantom like me. Don't let this get out. How you

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would feel if you had made such an ass of yourself.

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I heard his stately tramp die away, step by step,

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down the stairs and out into the deserted street, and

236
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felt sorry that he was gone poor fellow, and sorrier

237
00:21:24,079 --> 00:21:27,880
still that he had carried off my red blanket and

238
00:21:28,039 --> 00:21:33,200
my bathtub. End of a ghost's tell