“Who is that man?  I couldn’t see him the other time, and I can’t see him now,” exclaimed little Elsie, gazing round in wide-eyed wonder; for she had never quite understood Cousin Ronald’s performances, and was much puzzled to comprehend all that was now being done and said.

“I say, capting,” cried another strange voice, it also coming apparently from an invisible speaker, “why upon airth don’t you put that impident critter off the boat?  I’d do it in a jiffy if ’twas me.”

“You have my permission to do so, sir,” returned the captain, “but perhaps he will go presently of his own accord.”

“Hollo!” shouted a strange voice that seemed to come from the water near at hand, and was followed immediately by the dip of an oar, “I say, what’s the matter up there on that deck?  If I was capting o’ that yacht, there shouldn’t be no such goings on aboard it.”

“The impudence of the fellow!” exclaimed Lucilla, forgetting for the moment the presence of two ventriloquists, and, springing up, she was about to rush to the side of the vessel to get a sight of the boatman; but her father, turning toward her with a smile, laid a detaining hand on her arm, while at the same time he called out in good-humored tones: 

“Suppose you board us then, sir, and show what you can do.”

“Humph!” snarled the voice that seemed so near at hand, “you’d better try it, old feller, whomsoever you be, but I bet you’ll find me an’ Joe here more’n a match fer you.”

“Oh, Bill, I say, let’s git out o’ this!” exclaimed a third voice, apparently close at hand; “we’ve had our fill o’ grub and might as well make ourselves scarce now.”

“All right, Joe,” returned the voice of the first speaker; “we’ll git inter that feller’s boat, and no doubt he’ll take us ashore to git rid of us.”

A sound as of retreating footsteps followed, then all was quiet.

“Very well done, Cousin Ronald; one could almost see those fellows,” laughed the captain.

“I couldn’t see them, papa,” said little Elsie.  “I could only hear them.  What was the reason?”

“Suppose you ask Cousin Ronald,” was her father’s reply.

“So you are a ventriloquist, sir?” remarked Percy Landreth, in a tone between assertion and enquiry, and giving the old gentleman a look of mingled curiosity and amusement.

“You think so, do you, sir?  But why should I be suspected more than anyone else in this company of friends and relatives?” asked Cousin Ronald in a quiet tone.

“Well, sir, it seems to me evident from all I have seen and heard.  All appear to look to you as one who is probably at the bottom of all these mysterious doings.”

“No, not quite all, Percy,” Violet said with a smile.

“So there are two, are there?” queried Percy.  “Then the other, I presume, is Mr. Hugh Lilburn.”

“O Percy!” cried Lucilla in half reproachful tones, “I wish you hadn’t found out quite so soon; because it spoils the fun.”