e
encountered--"we wanted you to have a nice rest."

Silvia looked quite penitent and remorseful for her seeming lack of
appreciation of our combined efforts. When I had answered all her
inquiries satisfactorily, Miss Frayne's curiosity regarding the
progeny of the eminent Polydores had to be fully relieved.

"And do you mean that the scribbling lady I saw at the table is really
the mother of these five boys?" she asked, unable to grasp the fact.

"Yes; and the father hereof is the man who explained the ghosts to you
so scientifically that you cannot remember what he said. Now, Ptolemy,
we'll hear your story of the fire and the whereabouts of your parents.
Take your time and tell it accurately."

"Well, you see we did just as you said to, and took the ghost out of
the window and went out to the woods early this morning so as not to
let the paper lady see us."

"Oh!" cried Miss Frayne, "am I the paper lady? I begin to see
daylight. Are these boys the ghost perpetrators, and were you in on
the put-up job?"

"You're a good guesser," I replied.

"And why wasn't I taken into your confidence?"

"For two reasons. First, because your friend Rob said you'd get better
results for copy--more inspirations and thrills, if you weren't behind
the scenes on the ghost business,--and then we didn't want to tell you
about the presence of the Polydores lest inadvertently you betray the
fact to my wife. Now, proceed, Ptolemy."

"After we were in the woods, I heard an automobile coming down the
lane, and I went up near the edge of the woods and peeked out behind a
tree, and pretty soon I saw father and mother come over the hill and
go in our haunted house, so I came up there and hid under the window
and heard mother say: 'What an ideal place to write this is. It looks
as if I might really get a chance to write unmo--'

"'--lested,'" I finished for him.

"I guess so," he allowed. "Well, she began writing, so I didn't go in,
but when father came outside I went up to him and told him you and
mudder were at the hotel and that we were all with you. He told me
they came up here to write an article for some big magazine about the
ghost. He hired an automobile down at Windy Creek to bring them up to
the house and the man was going to come back for them tomorrow
morning. I didn't let on the ghost was a fake, because I thought he'd
be so disappointed to have all his trouble for nothing, and he'd be
mad at me for swiping his skull. I told