en and out
bounded the Rev. Mr. Spiegelnail, clearing the steps with a jump, and
flying over the lawn. All thought of the late Robert J. Dinkle left me
then, for I had only a few feet start of my pastor. You see I shouldn't
a-hurried so only I sung bass in the choir and I doubt if I could have
convinced him that I was working in the interests of Science and Truth.
Fleeing was instinct. Gates didn't matter. They were took on the wing,
and down the street I went with the preacher's hot breath on my neck.
But I beat him. 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."

"Because," says I, "we left behind such evidences of material
manifestations as strings and weights on the parlor window."

"S'pose we work right in the house?" says he, brightening up. "You can
hide in the closet and groan while I act."

Now did you ever hear anything innocenter than that? Yet he meant it so
well I did not even laugh.

"I'm too fond of my pastor," I says, "to let him catch me in his closet.
A far better spot for our work is the short cut he takes home from
church after Wednesday evening meeting. We won't be so loud, but more
dignified, melancholier, and tragic. You overacted last night, Robert,"
I says. "Next time pace up and down like you were deep in thought and
sigh gentle. 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. Spiegelnail was on the point of seeing things it was
that night as he stepped out of the woods. He had walked slow and
meditating till he come opposite where I was. Now I didn't howl or
groan or say anything particular. What I did was to make a noise that
wasn't animal, neither was it human, nor was it regulation ghostly. 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