Fitzgerald resumed his chair.

“Have a cigar.  Laura is used to it.”

“But does Miss Killigrew like it?” laughing.

“Cigars, and pipes, and cigarettes,” she returned.  “I am really fond of the aroma.  I have tried to acquire the cigarette habit, but I have yet to learn what satisfaction you men get out of it.”

Conversation veered in various directions, and finally rested upon the subject of piracy; and here the admiral proved himself a rare scholar.  By some peculiar inadvertency, as he was in the middle of one of his own adventures, his finger touched the burglar alarm.  Clang!  Brrrr!  From top to bottom of the house came the shock of differently voiced bells.  The two men gazed at each other dumfounded.  But the girl laughed merrily.

“You touched the alarm, father.”

“I rather believe I did.  And a few minutes before you came in with the toddies I tried it and it didn’t work.”

It took some time to quiet the servants; and when that was done Fitzgerald determined to go down to the village.

“Good night, Mr. Fitzgerald,” said the girl.  “Better beware; this house is haunted.”

“We’ll see if we can’t lay that ghost, as they say,” he responded.

The admiral came to the door.  “What do you make of it?” he whispered.

“You possibly did not press the button squarely the first time.”  And that was Fitzgerald’s genuine belief.

“By the way, will you take a note for me to Swan’s?  It will not take me a moment to scribble it.”

“Certainly.”

Finally the young man found himself in the park, heading quickly toward the gates.  He searched the night keenly, but this time he neither heard nor saw any one.  Then he permitted his fancy to take short flights.  Interesting situation!  To find himself a guest here, when he had come keyed up for something strenuous!  Pirates and jolly-rogers and mysterious trespassers and silent bells, to say nothing of a beautiful young woman with a leaning toward adventure!  But the most surprising turn was yet to come.

In the office of Swan’s hotel the landlord sat snoozing peacefully behind the desk.  There was only one customer.  He was a gray-haired, ruddy-visaged old salt in white duck—­at this time of year!—­and a blue sack-coat dotted with shining brass buttons, the whole five-foot-four topped by a gold-braided officer’s cap.  He was drinking what is jocularly called a “schooner” of beer, and finishing this he lurched from the room with a rolling, hiccoughing gait, due entirely to a wooden peg which extended from his right knee down to a highly polished brass ferrule.

Fitzgerald awakened the landlord and gave him the admiral’s note.

“You will be sure and give this to the gentleman in the morning?”

“Certainly, sir.  Mr. Karl Breitmann,” reading the superscription aloud.  “Yes, sir; first thing in the morning.”