Told After Supper

1891 illustration for Told After Supper by Kenneth M. Skeaping.

Told After Supper is an anthology of short humorous ghost stories by the British author Jerome K. Jerome. It was first published in 1891.

The stories are connected by a framing device in which the unnamed narrator attends a Christmas Eve dinner party at his uncle's house. After having eaten and drunk a large amount of alcohol, the guests, as was normal on Christmas Eve in Victorian Britain, tell ghost stories to each other. The narrator does not include all of the stories that are told that evening in the anthology. He has to leave two of them out because he does not understand them. The last story in the anthology is the narrator's own story of the ghostly experience that he has on that Christmas Eve, which ends with him making a public disgrace of himself.

Under the title After Supper Ghost Stories, the book was faithfully adapted as a British radio play by Paul Wetherby. The radio drama, starring Dinsdale Landen as the narrator, first aired on BBC Radio 4 on December 26, 1992 as part of the Christmas Spirits mini-series.

Summary

Introduction

The book opens with the words, "It was Christmas Eve." The narrator then states that it was really not necessary to say that because it is always Christmas Eve in ghost stories. Although there are some ghosts who are active every night, some who appear on other dates (such as Halloween, Midsummer or special anniversaries) and some who come to foretell disasters that are about to befall their families, the majority of British ghosts confine their hauntings to Christmas Eve. Also, whenever six or more English-speaking people gather on Christmas Eve, for some reason, they feel the need to tell each other about their genuine encounters with ghosts. The narrator says, "There is a good deal of similarity about our ghostly experiences, but this of course is not our fault but the fault of the ghosts."

The narrator goes on to give brief outlines of some of the ghost stories that are typically told on Christmas Eve. One story involves a young man who is staying at a friend's home over Christmas. He wakes up in the night to see a strange woman in his bedroom. When he looks again, the woman has gone. He mentions the occurrence the following morning at breakfast. He is surprised when his host tells him not to speak about it anymore. Later, the host tells the guest that he saw the ghost of a woman who was either murdered in that bedroom or who murdered someone else there.

Another typical Christmas Eve ghost story concerns a skeptical guest who is staying with a friend over Christmas. He hears that one bedroom in the house is haunted, does not believe it and asks to spend the night in that bedroom. The following morning, the guest's hair has turned white and he will not talk about what he saw during the night.

The narrator says that hearing six ghost stories in a row is enough. After that, they become monotonous because of their similarities.

How the Stories Came to be Told

The narrator goes to spend Christmas in the house of his Uncle John and Aunt Maria in Tooting. A dinner party is held there on Christmas Eve. It is attended by the narrator, the local clergyman, old Dr. Scrubbles, Mr. Samuel Coombes from the County Council and a young man named Teddy Biffles. Aunt Maria goes to bed soon after dinner. The men then drink whisky punch and gin punch, tell comic stories and sing comic songs. The clergyman tells them that he will demonstrate how con artists swindle people out of their money with the Three-card Monte trick. The demonstration does not go well for the clergyman because all the other guests pick the right card every time. Somehow, the narrator does not remember how, the topic of ghosts comes up in conversation. All of the guests then begin telling each other ghost stories.

The first story is told by young Teddy Biffles.

Johnson and Emily or The Faithful Ghost (Teddy Biffles' Story)

One Christmas Eve when he is a boy, Teddy Biffles opens the door of his bedroom. A ghost comes out of it, passes right through Teddy and wails. Teddy is frightened at first. He then remembers that spirits can only harm sinful people and has no difficulty getting to sleep.

The following morning, Teddy Biffles tells his father about his ghostly encounter. Teddy's father tells him that the ghost is that of a man named Johnson. Johnson had been in love with a young woman whose first name was Emily, Teddy's father does not know what her surname was. Emily's family had once rented the home in which Teddy's family now lives. Emily's father said that Johnson was too poor to marry her. For that reason, Johnson went to Australia and tried to seek his fortune by embarking on a life of crime as a bushranger. There were not many travelers for Johnson to rob and it took him twenty years to become rich. Johnson returned to England, only to find that Emily and her family had left one night without paying the rent and nobody knew where they had gone. Johnson searched the world for Emily but could not find her. He returned to England again and rented the same house in which Emily used to live. He lived the rest of his life there in terrible sadness. His unhappy ghost lingered after his death, which meant that the landlord gave Teddy Biffles' father a reduction on the rent.

Teddy Biffles sees Johnson a great many times afterwards, as do the rest of his family. Although the ghost is harmless and does not frighten them, he becomes an irritant. This is because the ghost is always unhappy and is constantly wailing and groaning as a result. Teddy Biffles' father decides that he wants Johnson out of his house. Teddy's mother says that the only way to get rid of the ghost is to find Emily's grave. Johnson would then haunt the grave instead of their house. Teddy Biffles and his family are unable to find the grave of the woman Johnson loved. Teddy's father suggests passing off the grave of someone else named Emily as that of Johnson's lost love. Unfortunately, they cannot find a grave belonging to anyone else whose name was Emily either.

Teddy says that they could make a fake grave. His father agrees that this is an excellent idea. At the bottom of their orchard, a tombstone is set up on which is written, "Sacred to the memory of Emily. Her last words were, 'Tell Johnson I love him.'" That night, Teddy and his family get Johnson to follow them down to the orchard. The ghost falls on the fake grave and cries.

The ghost has never troubled Teddy Biffles or his family again because he no longer goes inside their house. Instead, Johnson can be seen at the fake grave every night from 10pm to 4am, except on Saturdays when he only stays until 2am.

The Doctor's Story

According to all of the other listeners, the doctor's story was the best and most frightening story of all. Unfortunately, the narrator did not understand it and does not include it in Told After Supper for that reason. The narrator knows that the story ends with somebody finding something. That reminds Mr. Coombes of his story, which he proceeds to tell.

The Haunted Mill or The Ruined Home (Mr. Coombes's Story)

Mr. Coombes' brother-in-law Joe Parkin goes to live in an old windmill in Surrey. The miller who once owned the windmill was well known for being a miser. It is rumored that he hid a large amount of money somewhere in the mill. Many people who have lived in the windmill over the years have looked for the hidden money but have found nothing. Joe Parkin is skeptical about the story of the miller's hidden treasure and does not look for it. Nevertheless, he cannot forget the story of the hidden treasure entirely.

One evening, Joe Parkin wakes up just as the clock on the village church finishes chiming midnight. Standing at the foot of his bed is a little old man in old-fashioned clothes. Joe Parkin is certain that the little old man is the ghost of the miserly miller who has come to show him where the treasure is hidden. Joe follows the ghost downstairs to the kitchen. The ghost stops in front of the stove, sighs and vanishes. The next morning, Joe gets some workmen to remove the stove and the chimney behind it. They do not find any hidden money.

The ghost appears again the following night. Joe follows it to the kitchen again. It stops in the middle of the floor and sighs. Joe decides that the treasure must be under the floor. Some workmen spend all of the following day taking up the floor. There is nothing underneath it apart from an old fork with a broken handle.

That night, the ghost appears for a third time. Again, Joe follows it down to the kitchen. This time, the ghost looks up at the ceiling and sighs before vanishing. The following morning, Joe Parkin gets some workmen to remove the kitchen ceiling and the floorboards of the room above it. They do not find any treasure.

Two nights later, the ghost leads Joe up to the attic and points to the ceiling there before vanishing. Joe has the roof removed in order to search for the treasure. He does not find any money and needs to have tarpaulins put up to protect his roofless home from the rain.

Joe continues following the ghost night after night. Each night, the ghost seems to suggest that the money is hidden in a different place. After three weeks, Joe's home is not fit to live in because every wall has been knocked down, every floor has been taken up and a hole has been knocked in every ceiling. After those three weeks, the ghost never appears again. Joe does not find any hidden money and has to have his home rebuilt.

Mr. Coombes does not know why the ghost of the miller played this trick on Joe Parkin. It may have been to punish Joe for not believing in the story of the hidden treasure at first. It is also possible that the ghost was not that of the miller at all. It might have been the ghost of a local workman, "who would naturally take an interest in seeing a home knocked about and spoiled."

Interlude

The clergyman tries to tell a ghost story next. It is a very complicated story, about which the narrator says, "There seemed to be an enormous amount of plot and enough incident to have made a dozen novels. I never before heard a story containing so much incident, nor one dealing with so many characters."

The narrator does not understand the story at all. Neither do any of the other listeners, who all get thoroughly confused by it. Eventually, they ask the clergyman if he knows what he is talking about. He replies, "No," A tablecloth is then put over the clergyman's head and he goes to sleep.

After that, the narrator's Uncle John announces that he has a true ghost story to tell.

The Ghost of the Blue Chamber (My Uncle's Story)

The narrator's Uncle John informs the listeners that a room in the very house in which they are sitting is haunted. It is a bedroom which is known as the Blue Chamber. It is only haunted on the night of Christmas Eve.

The house had once belonged to a sinful man who murdered several musicians. He killed a carol singer by throwing a lump of coal out of a window which then went down the carol singer's throat and choked him. He is also said to have murdered a solo cornet player, an Italian barrel organ player and a man who played the harp with his toes. The sinful man was also responsible for cutting short the visit to England of a German band. The sinful man invited all the members of the German band to dinner. After that, they all became extremely ill and had to spend an entire day in bed. They returned to Germany soon afterwards. A doctor who treated them said that they would probably never play another tune again.

Every Christmas Eve, the ghosts of the sinful man, the carol singer, the solo cornet player, the Italian organ-grinder, the harpist and all of the members of the German band materialize in the Blue Chamber. They stay there until the coming dawn is announced by the first crow of a rooster. The ghost of the sinful man fights all of the other ghosts. The narrator's Uncle John says that he thinks he can hear them now.

My Own Story

The narrator gets up and announces that he is going to spend the night in the Blue Chamber. His Uncle John and the other men who attended the dinner party try to stop him. He reminds them that he is the guest and that the guest always sleeps in the haunted bedroom on Christmas Eve. They have to accept that he is right. They all accompany him up to the room.

Since he is not feeling sleepy, the narrator lies awake in bed. He amuses himself by thinking of funny stories. He spends a pleasant thirty minutes doing that and quite forgets about the ghosts. He then sees a very contented looking ghost, sitting in an armchair by the fire and smoking a pipe. The narrator is not frightened and is glad of the company. He says, "Good evening", to the ghost asks him if he was the one who killed the carol singer. To the narrator's surprise, the ghost cheerfully admits to that murder. The ghost takes offense when the narrator asks him if he had a hand in the death of the Italian barrel organ player. The ghost says that he did not "have a hand" in that murder because he killed the organ-grinder by himself without any help from anyone else. The ghost goes on to cheerfully admit to having murdered seven solo cornet players and dozens of other people, many of them musicians.

The narrator asks the ghost of the sinful man when the other ghosts will come. He answers that no other ghosts will come now. The ghosts of the carol singer, the solo cornet player, the Italian organ-grinder, the harpist and the German band members used to come on Christmas Eve. After twenty-five years of fighting them, however, the ghost of the sinful man has destroyed all of the other ghosts. The ghost of the sinful man is not certain if he will come back again next Christmas Eve. He says that he might return, however, if the narrator comes back again the following year. The ghost likes the narrator because he has not run off screaming and his hair has not stood up on end.

The ghost becomes worried when he thinks he hears a rooster crow. The narrator points out that it is still the middle of the night. The ghost says that does not matter. He has to leave as soon as a rooster crows and he thinks that the roosters deliberately crow in the middle of the night for that reason. Soon afterwards, a rooster really does crow. Even though it is only 3:30am, the ghost announces that he has to go. The narrator says that he will accompany him part of the way. He puts on some clothes and goes out of the house with the ghost.

At the gate of his uncle's house, the narrator sees a policeman he recognizes whose name is Jones. The narrator and Jones greet each other. Jones asks the narrator what he is doing. The narrator says that he is walking part of the way home with his friend, whom Jones cannot see because he is a ghost. Jones tells the narrator that he should say goodbye to his friend now and go back inside because he is not wearing any pants. The narrator takes offense at this. He loudly insists that he is wearing pants and accuses Jones of being drunk. Jones and the narrator continue to argue loudly with each other. This wakes up the narrator's Uncle John and Aunt Maria. The narrator's Uncle John comes to the door. The narrator tries to tell his uncle that Jones has made a mistake. He looks to the ghost for support but finds that he has vanished. The narrator is taken back inside the house by his Uncle John. When he gets back inside the house, the narrator sees that he is not wearing any pants and that Jones was right.

As a result of the incident in which he went out on Christmas Eve without any pants, the narrator's Uncle John and Aunt Maria are no longer on speaking terms with him.

See also

• "The Man of Science"

External links

• Jerome K. Jerome's Told After Supper, illustrated by Kenneth M. Skeaping, on the Internet Archive.
• Free public domain audiobook of Told After Supper from LibriVox.