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Updated: June 19, 2025
Whibley was one of the mildest little men I ever knew, but chaff or abuse of his Spirit roused the devil in him, and I feared we were going to have a scene.
"Maria," it appeared, had known the Count from his boyhood, and could answer for it that he was the most honourable man in all South America. Possibly enough he was. The Count was astonished to find that Whibley knew all about his mine.
Close to me, as I write, is a bookcase on whose shelves Henley and Henley's Young Men Marriott Watson, George Steevens, Charles Whibley, Leonard Whibley, Rudyard Kipling, Kenneth Grahame, Arthur Morrison, G.S. Street jostle each other in the big and little volumes that were to create the world anew. The small green-bound Henleys stand in a row.
Eight thousand pounds was needed to start the workings, but he had not mentioned it to any one, as he wanted to keep the whole thing to himself, and thought he could save the money on his estates in Portugal. However, to oblige "Maria," he would let Whibley supply the money. Whibley supplied it in cash, and no one has ever seen the Count since.
I decline to play whist with spirits of any kind; and I advise you, sir, if you intend giving many exhibitions with the lady, first to teach her the rudiments of the game." Saying which the Major put on his hat and left the club, and I made Whibley drink a stiff glass of brandy and water, and sent him and "Maria" home in a cab. Whibley got rid of "Maria" at last.
When nobody asked it anything it would talk to itself, repeating "Yes!" "No!" "No!" "Yes!" over and over again in an aimless, lonesome sort of a way that made you feel sorry for it. After a while Whibley bought a table, and encouraged it to launch out into more active conversation.
To further excuse him, it should also be explained that the gas had been put out by Whibley, and that the fire had gone out of its own accord. He replied that it was hard labour enough to find out what the thing said without having to make sense of it. "It can't spell," he added, "and it's got a nasty, sulky temper. If it was my spirit I'd hire another spirit to kick it."
In its passion for poking its ghostly nose into other people's affairs it reminded me of my earthly friend Poppleton. Nothing pleased it better than being appealed to for aid and advice, and Whibley, who was a perfect slave to it, would hunt half over the parish for people in trouble and bring them to it.
The Thursday night was the exception that did not see Charles Whibley at Henley's right hand even as he was in the pages of the National Observer, not merely ready for the fight but provoking it, insisting upon it, forcing it, boisterous in battle, looking like an undergraduate, talking like a pastmaster of the art of invective, with a little stammer that gave point to his lightest commonplace.
He said that if only he had had such a spirit to help and advise him, it might have altered his whole life. He was the first man who had ever said a kind word about the spirit, and Whibley loved him for it. The Count seemed as though he could never see enough of Whibley after that evening, and the three of them Whibley, the Count, and "Maria" would sit up half the night talking together.
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