SOURCE: "Carleton Barker, First and Second" by J.K. Bangs (Scribner's Magazine, October 1893).

DESCRIPTION: "'I think so, for as I passed he gasped­-both of them gasped, and as I stopped to speak to the one I had first recognized he had vanished as completely as though he had never been, and as I turned to address the other he was shambling off into the darkness as fast as his legs could carry him.'" ("Carleton Barker, First and Second" by J. K. Bangs)

NOTES: From the age of five in India, Carleton Barker was subject to a double. The doppleganger version of himself threw glass into the eyes of ten-year-old. He was cleared of the charges because his original self was seen elsewhere. So the pattern was set for the next thirty-four years. The doppleganger would commit horrible acts and the innocent would be charged with them, only to be cleared by witnesses. The evil version of Barker is detectable because of the scowl of evil in its face. Barker is tormented by the doppleganger but also takes a kind of perverse pleasure in its success. Eventually the evil double is hanged and the original disappears.

HISTORY: Not all of Bangs' ghost stories are humorous as this tale proves. Similar to Poe's "William Wilson", the idea of the ghostly double goes back into mythological times. We all wish at times we were more than one person but none of us likes to have our identity stained by the acts of another. Carleton Barker disappears at the end of the story. I kind thought he might jump into the air and strangle like a man being hanged. Oh well, he didn't.

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