"Har-Heri! Que-hou-hou!" croaked a hoarse little voice in the hedge opposite. "Hello, Johnnie-boy! That you?" "Where you bin te-day?" "Where have I been? Down in Little Sark, prowling about the mines, stealing lumps of silver----" "Godzamin! They an't any silver now." "No? All right, my son. Then I'm telling you fibs." "Show me." "Ah, I don't carry it about with me." "An't got any." And presently, as Graeme lit up, without deigning any answer,--"I seen a ghost las' night." "Clever boy! What did you make out of it?" "'Twas the ghost of old Tom Hamon's father. Was all white and dead-like." "You're too previous, Johnnie. He's getting better." "He's a-goin' to die." "So are you sometime." "No, I a'n't. Show me 'at silver." "Sometime, perhaps, if you ask nicely. I'm going to bed now. Come along, Punch! Goodnight, Johnnie! Keep your eyes skinned for ghosts. Capital night for them, I should say," and he went off up the garden, with Punch stalking solemnly alongside. And Johnnie Vautrin erected himself on his hands and haunches to see where he was going, while the vivacious Scamp, shut up in the wood-house and bereft of his bedfellow, and doubtless fearful of ghosts in every nerve of his quivering little body, rent the still night with his expostulations, as he heard them go past. The scent of the pipe was lingering still in the forecourt when the ladies turned in out of the road, and they just caught a glimpse of the smoker disappearing through the gap in the hedge. "Ah-ha! There goes the Bogey-Man!" said Miss Hen. "Does this dear little dog carry on this way all through the night, Mrs. Carre?" "It iss becos the gentleman hass tekken Punch up to the house to kip away the ghosts," smiled Mrs. Carre. "I should say this one would have been of more use." "He will be quiet soon. Scamp, bad beast, be qui-et! A couche!" "To keep away ghosts! What a muff he must be!" said Miss Hen. "Chum, what do you say to putting on white sheets and giving him a scare? If we did a skirly-whirly a la Loie Fuller, below his window, he'd probably have blue fits. Ghosts, indeed!" "If that big brown Punch got out at you it's you would have the blue fits," said Miss Chum. "The Sark air is getting into your head, Hennie." "Of course it is. That's what we came for, isn't it? You'll feel it yourself before you're two days older, my child. You're looking better than I've seen you for a month past." "It's so delightful to feel free," said Miss Chum. III Thoroughly tired out, and with a guardian angel on the mat at his bedside, in the shape of a long brown body which sought fresh ease in an occasional sprawl, and flopped a responsive tail each time he dropped a friendly pat on to its head in the dark--Graeme looked confidently for a sound night's rest.