"Some," Ford answered. In a typical conversation he might have used this as an opportunity to launch into an animated history of the most prominent ghosts who had attended the last ball, since he did like spirits, and their stories, and talking about them to other people. In this instance, however, he was a little reticent to share details. He didn't want Broadmoor to think that he was enjoying his company too much, and... well, he didn't want to accidentally start enjoying Broadmoor's company, which might happen if he got off track talking about famous ghosts. "But you might not recognize them. That's the thing about a lot of famous ghosts. People remember their names from books or stories or whatnot, but when they meet them they don't realize who they're talking to. They don't look the way people expect them to, I suppose."

There was a slight tendency among people, both living and dead, to view history as merely a particular variety of fiction, at least when it came to creating mental images of the people they were reading or hearing about. Even when there was a picture printed right on the facing page, prominent historical ghosts often went unrecognized. Or at least, that was the story according to one spirit Ford was well acquainted with, who had half a chapter dedicated to him in the first year Hogwarts textbook for History of Magic, and yet was often asked to introduce himself twice or thrice before anyone made the connection.

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