world, and didn’t scare easily.  But after losing three nights’ sleep and the society of his friend, he began to be a little impatient, and to think that the thing had gone far enough.  You see, while in a way he was fond of ghosts, yet he liked them best one at a time.  Two ghosts were one too many.  He wasn’t bent on making a collection of spooks.  He and one ghost were company, but he and two ghosts were a crowd.”

“What did he do?” asked Baby Van Rensselaer.

“Well, he couldn’t do anything.  He waited awhile, hoping they would get tired; but he got tired out first.  You see, it comes natural to a spook to sleep in the daytime, but a man wants to sleep nights, and they wouldn’t let him sleep nights.  They kept on wrangling and quarreling incessantly; they manifested and they dark-seanced as regularly as the old clock on the stairs struck twelve; they rapped and they rang bells and they banged the tambourine and they threw the flaming banjo about the house, and worse than all, they swore.”

“I did not know that spirits were addicted to bad language,” said the Duchess.

“How did he know they were swearing?  Could he hear them?” asked Dear Jones.

“That was just it,” responded Uncle Larry; “he could not hear them—­at least not distinctly.  There were inarticulate murmurs and stifled rumblings.  But the impression produced on him was that they were swearing.  If they had only sworn right out, he would not have minded it so much, because he would have known the worst.  But the feeling that the air was full of suppressed profanity was very wearing and after standing it for a week, he gave up in disgust and went to the White Mountains.”

“Leaving them to fight it out, I suppose,” interjected Baby Van Rensselaer.

“Not at all,” explained Uncle Larry.  “They could not quarrel unless he was present.  You see, he could not leave the titular ghost behind him, and the domiciliary ghost could not leave the house.  When he went away he took the family ghost with him, leaving the house ghost behind.  Now spooks can’t quarrel when they are a hundred miles apart any more than men can.”

“And what happened afterward?” asked Baby Van Rensselaer, with a pretty impatience.

“A most marvelous thing happened.  Eliphalet Duncan went to the White Mountains, and in the car of the railroad that runs to the top of Mount Washington he met a classmate whom he had not seen for years, and this classmate introduced Duncan to his sister, and this sister was a remarkably pretty girl, and Duncan fell in love with her at first sight, and by the time he got to the top of Mount Washington he was so deep in love that he began to consider his own unworthiness, and to wonder whether she might ever be induced to care for him a little—­ever so little.”

“I don’t think that is so marvelous a thing,” said Dear Jones glancing at Baby Van Rensselaer.

“Who was she?” asked the Duchess, who had once lived in Philadelphia.