The Baggageman's Ghost
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"The corpses of the passengers killed in the disaster up at Spuyten
Duyvil was fetched down here and laid out in[1] The room was darkened
and I could just make out the out that storage room," said a Grand
Central depot baggageman. "That's what give it the name of morgue. Some
of the boys got scared of going in after that, 'specially in the dark;
and a lot of stories was started about spooks. We had a helper (a
drunken
hap that didn't know whether he saw a thing or dreamed it), and
he swore to the toughest of the yarns. He says he went in to get a
trunk. It was a whopper, and he braced himself for a big strain; but,
when he gripped it, it come up just as if there wasn't nothing in it
more'n air or gas. That unexpected kind of a lift is like kicking at
nothing--it's hurtful, don't you know?"
"I should think so."
"Well, Joe felt as light-headed as the trunk, he says, but he brought it
out. When he was putting it down he was stunned to see a ghost sitting
straddle of it."
"What did the ghost look like?"
"Joe was so scared that he can't tell, except that it had grave-clothes
on. And it went out of sight as soon as he got out into the
daylight--floated off, and at the same instant the trunk became as heavy
as such a trunk generally is. Some of us believe Joe's story, and some
don't, and he's one of them that does. He throwed up his job rather than
go into the morgue again."