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He tired after the first spurt and was soon left behind, so I could double back home to bed. Robert, he was for giving up entirely. "I simply won't work," says he to me, when I met him on the store porch that next night. "A hundred years ago such a bit of ha'nting would have caused the town to be abandoned; to-day it is attributed to natural causes."

Often, since then, have I thought of him and figgered on his tremendous possibilities. That he had possibilities I am sure. Had I only realized it that last night we went out ha'nting, he never would have got away from me. But the realization came too late. It came in church the very next Sunday, with the usual announcements after the long prayer, as Mr.

Didn't the breeches and goggles and whiskers and hand-bag and every blessed thing turn to ghost-stuff? Everything it had on turned, didn't it? It shows that the reason its boots turned too was because it still had them on after it started to go ha'nting around, and if that ain't proof that them blatherskites didn't get the boots, I'd like to know what you'd CALL proof." Think of that now.

As I had stated to the late Robert J. Dinkle, what was needed for ha'nting was something new and original. And it certainly ketched Mr. Spiegelnail's attention. I see him stop. I see his lantern shake. It appeared like he was going to dive into the bushes for me, but he changed his mind.

Then if he should see you it would be nice to take his arm and walk home with him." I think I had the right idea of ha'nting, and had I been able to keep up Robert J. Dinkle's sperrits and to train him regular I could have aroused the slumbering imagination of Harmony, and brought life to the burying-ground. But he was too easy discouraged. He lacked perseverance. For if ever Mr.

For me, I was just wild with excitement, and was so busy thinking of him and how glad he would be, that I didn't hear the sermon at all, and in planning new ways of ha'nting I forgot to sing in the last anthem. You see, I figgered lively times ahead for Harmony a general return to the good old times when folks had imagination and had something more in their heads than facts.

A bright smile showed on his pale face. "It is a relief to be seen at last," he cried, most cheerful. "For years I've been trying to do a little ha'nting around here, and no one would notice me. I used to think mebbe my material was too delicate and gauzy, but I've conceded that, after all, the stuff is not to blame." He heaved a sigh so natural that I forgot all about his being a ghost.

It was just a night when things should have been lively there a perfect night for ha'nting. I called for Robert. I listened. He never answered. I heard only a bull-frog a-bellering in the pond, a whippoor-will whistling in the grove, and a dog howling at the moon. From Tales of the Tenements, by Eden Phillpotts. Published in America by John Lane Company, and in England by John Murray.

You don't realize what a pleasure it is to know that you are fulfilling your mission and living up to your reputation." Poor old ghost! He was for talking it all over then and there and settled down on a soft bunch of lilacs, and fell to smoking fog and chattering. It did me good to see him so happy and I was inclined to puff up a bit at my own success in the ha'nting line.

The ghost was perfect. As I have stated, he was excited and his sigh shook a little, but he was full of dignity and sadity. He shouldn't have lost heart so soon. I was sure then that he almost showed up plain to the preacher and he would have grown on Mr. Spiegelnail had he kept on ha'nting him instead of giving in because that one night the pastor walked on to the house fairly cool.