Best Ghost Story I Ever Read

OK, so I'm a sucker. I went ahead and bought the TimesSelect service for the year from the NYTIMES.com; after all, how else are they gonna make any doe-ray-me without actually printing a newspaper?

So, to start enjoying my fair young pretty (bwoo-hoo-hoo-ha-haaa), I clicked immediately to a title and writer that piqued my interest: Ghost Stories from Dick Cavett. DO I need to relate whom in particular Mr. Cavitt is or was within the American Zeitgeist? I'll do what he refuses to: offer a link so you'll have some context before reading the whole post.

Did you read that? Get it? Good. Onward and upward.

Since I paid for this shite, I feel no compunction ---

(Ed. Note: Just like Havelock Ellis 'showed no compunction in planning devilish engines of...destruction' -- Havelock Ellis, you rock!)

--- in sharing a quote from his "Ghost Stories" that I think may be the best ghost anecdote I have ever read.

"Many years ago, Groucho Marx (Must I identify him for the young among us?
I refuse. Look him up.) and his brothers (the real Fab Four) were playing a
vaudeville house in Chicago. Groucho could always go unrecognized in public,
thanks to the painted-on mustache he wore onstage. This allowed him to, as he
put it 'go anywhere and mingle with the common man in all his dreariness.'
Back then, there was a prominent trance medium holding forth, and her devoted
disciples (sometimes spelled s-u-c-k-e-r-s) solemnly offered to take the man
born Julius Marx with them to a séance. Always intellectually curious, Groucho
was glad to be asked along — though he told me he was 'vaguely insulted' when
his new friends solemnly cautioned him to show the proper reverence. 'I’m not a
clown 24 hours,' he said. 'I can also be serious.'

The séance was held in the darkened parlor of some wealthy believer’s
apartment. Groucho reported a heavy air of sanctity about the place, “and not
entirely from the incense.” Lights were low and the faithful conversed in hushed
tones. The medium began to chant unintelligibly, and then to emit a strange
humming sound (I can’t help seeing her as Margaret Dumont), eventually achieving her trance state. 'I am in
touch, I am in touch with the Other Side,' he intoned. 'Does anyone have a
question?'

Groucho arose and asked, 'What is the capital of North Dakota?'

He recalled being chased for several blocks, but escaped injury."