Young Hand finished his ginger ale and made a face at the mug. Then he asked: “Well, how do you account for ’em?” “Have I got to account for them, Dickie?” “I mean, why can’t I see them?” “How do you know you can’t?” “I never have.” “That doesn’t prove anything--it doesn’t prove you never will. Dick, see here, go back to your mathematics. There’s the fourth dimension. All we can see and feel has only three dimensions--length, breadth, and thickness or height--but mathematics tells you things may exist which measure four ways instead of three.” “But I can’t see ’em; neither can you or anybody else.” “Of course. But you can see representations of them. A house on paper is not a house, but a picture of one. A ghost may only be a representation, a sort of picture, a projection of Something or Somebody that measures four ways. A house measures three ways and you can put it, after a fashion, on a sheet of paper where it measures only two ways. Why can’t a ghost be a three-dimensional----” “Tommy Lupton never saw a ghost,” interrupted Dick, with a smile. “Can you picture Tommy patrolling the beach at night as a dutiful Coast Guard and coming upon a projection of Captain Kidd?” “Certainly. Tommy is extremely likely to meet Captain Vanton,” said Mermaid, promptly. “You mean that Captain Vanton is Captain Kidd living on earth again?” jested the young man. “A reincarnation? No. He might be the shadow of Captain Kidd, though. He might be the three-dimensional shadow of a four-dimensional creature.” “Come off! You said awhile ago that you didn’t pretend the ghosts you saw were flesh and blood.” “Is Captain Vanton flesh and blood?” asked Mermaid. “Did you ever pinch him or see him bleed?” Dick stared at her with pain and disapproval. “Mermaid, what a crazy thing to suggest! And how--how confoundedly gruesome! Sounds like Poe. We’ve been living with a spectre all these years out in Blue Port. A spectre with an invalid wife nobody ever sees. Seems to me Mrs. Vanton is more likely to be the ghost. And a spectre with a son. _He’s_ flesh and blood, for Tommy Lupton once punched his head. Guy’s flesh and blood, Mermaid.” A colour overspread the young woman’s check. “I know that,” she said. Then with a triumphant thought Hand exclaimed: “Besides, lots of people have heard Captain Vanton talk. What do you say to that? You said ghosts didn’t talk.” “I said I had never had them speak to me,” she corrected him. “I said they looked through you, and not at you. Captain Vanton does not look at you.” Dick felt aggrieved. “I didn’t think you’d quibble, Mermaid,” he said. “It isn’t like you.” Mermaid reached up and patted a coil of her hair. Then she rested her cheek on that hand and, reaching across the table, closed the other gently over Dick’s.