The Ogre of Oglefort

At first they could not make out what this apparition was; then to their horror they saw that it was the Princess Mirella! The princess in sodden, filthy clothes, too terrified to rise to her feet, groveling like the lowliest animal. They could not make out what the ogre was saying, but his contorted face and the pitiless pointing finger made it certain that he was pronouncing her doom.

The screen went dark and the Norns, in their rumpled bed, became extremely agitated.

“Princess must be saved,” said the First Norn.

“And ogre slain,” said the Second.

“Slain utterly,” said the Third.

But that wasn’t all. Something had to be done about the rescuers who had failed so spectacularly in their mission.

“Rescuers must be punished,” said the First Norn.

“Pulverized,” said the Second.

“Obsquatulated,” said the Third.

But who could they send? They had tried to find proper warriors at the meeting of Unusual Creatures and they had failed. Too frail to leave their beds, the Norns peered hopelessly at the empty platform.

The ghost train went past. The white-faced specters stared blankly in front of them. Water dripped from the roof.

“Who?” said the First Norn.

“Yes, who?” said the Second.

When a princess is in danger, something has to be done. This is a rule which binds all ancient creatures.

They went on swallowing pills, shaking their wobbly heads.

The ghost train came around again and still nothing occurred to them. Their eyes were beginning to close. What they wanted desperately was to sleep and sleep and sleep. . . .

With a great effort they shook themselves awake. The ghost train came in sight for a third time.

The Norns looked at one another. They struggled to their knees again. They stretched out their bony arms.

“Stop!” ordered the First Norn as the train drew level with the mouth of the cave.

“Stop!” said the Second Norn.

“Stop absolutely!” demanded the Third.

The train slowed down, stopped. The door opened a crack, opened a little farther, opened completely—and the specters’ white dead faces stared out in puzzlement.

The ghosts in the train were not there for nothing. The sins they were being punished for by circling the circle line forever and ever all had to do with traveling.

Now they were bewildered. The train had never stopped before—it just went around and around.

But it had stopped.

And the doors never opened.

But they had opened; they were sliding slowly apart. And, not quite believing it, the specters glided out onto the platform.

There was the Honker—a very old ghost with one leg and a crutch who had done nothing when he was alive but honk and spit and let out huge, revolting gobbets of saliva which got on the seats and the floor of the train for other passengers to slip on.

There was a ghost in city clothes and a bowler hat who had sharpened the point of his umbrella like a rapier and stuck it into the feet of any passenger who got in the train ahead of its owner. The umbrella still had bits of skin and blood clinging to it even now.

Behind him came the Aunt Pusher—a bruiser of a ghost with great hands like coal scuttles. He had pushed his aunt off the platform and under a train because he wanted her money, but when her will was read he found that she had left everything to a lost dogs’ home, and after that he went mad and started pushing everyone under trains who looked like her and wore a hat with feathers.

Two women ghosts glided out next. The Bag Lady was a fat ghost wearing a flannel nightdress and carrying a number of bulging shopping bags. During the war she had sheltered in the underground to get away from the bombs, but instead of lying quietly on the platform like the other shelterers, she had spread out a whole lot of clothes and blankets and pretended she had a family who was coming and had kept the other people away. Once she had turned away a young couple and they had gone back up the staircase and been caught by the blast from a bomb and been badly hurt.

The Smoking Girl was a very young ghost hung all over with gaudy scarves and floating shawls, and she would have been pretty except that her fingers and the corners of her mouth were stained yellow with nicotine. She had smoked a hundred cigarettes a day, coughing and blowing smoke at the other passengers on purpose. There was nothing she liked better than breathing her poisonous fumes into other people’s lungs.

There was even a Headless Ghost, the Chewer—whose head was so stuck up with chewing gum that he had left it on the train.

But there was one more ghost to come! He came slowly, and at first he was only a gray wavery shape—a space, a nothingness. But what a nothingness! A cold and hopeless emptiness; a pit of such pointlessness and despair and fear that those who came near felt that life had no sense or meaning.

“The Inspector!” whispered the other ghosts, and stood back to let him pass.