One day I found myself expecting _La Soupe_ Number 1 with something like
avidity. My appetite faded, however, upon perceiving a vision en route to
the empty place at my left. It slightly resembled a tall youth not more
than sixteen or seventeen years old, having flaxen hair, a face whose
whiteness I have never seen equalled, and an expression of intense
starvation which might have been well enough in a human being but was
somewhat unnecessarily uncanny in a ghost. The ghost, floating and
slenderly, made for the place beside me, seated himself suddenly and
gently like a morsel of white wind, and regarded the wall before him. _La
soupe_ arrived. He obtained a plate (after some protest on the part of
certain members of our table to whom the advent of a newcomer meant only
that everyone would get less for lunch), and after gazing at his portion
for a second in apparent wonderment at its size caused it gently and
suddenly to disappear. I was no sluggard as a rule, but found myself
outclassed by minutes--which, said I to myself, is not to be worried over
since 'tis sheer vanity to compete with the supernatural. But (even as I
lugged the last spoonful of luke-warm greasy water to my lips) this ghost
turned to me for all the world as if I too were a ghost, and remarked
softly:
"Will you lend me ten cents? I am going to buy tobacco at the canteen.
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