“Why, Val,” said Bar, “didn’t you hear all they had to say yesterday, about our house being haunted?” “Yes, and Mrs. Wood didn’t seem to more’n half like it.” “Well, we can’t help that, you know, but I move we send all the ghosts over into the belfry.” “Can you do it?” asked Val, with a look of admiring faith at his wonderful companion. “Yes,” said Bar. “We must take home with us that extra length of anchor-rope. It’s small and strong. Just the thing. Then we must get some bits of wood and a yard or two of canvas, and we can do it.” “Puff Evans has a regular workshop down by his house,” said Val. “He’s a kind of a genius in his way, if he only knew what work meant.” “Let’s fish, then,” exclaimed Bar, “and I’ll study hard. We shan’t have an hour to spare.” It was a curious piece of business, that Latin grammar, lying flat on the seat in front of Bar Vernon, as he sat in the stern of the boat, with his quick eyes glancing from that to the float of his fish-line. Nevertheless, the pages were turned pretty fast, from time to time, and every now and then a perch or a sunfish would come flopping in over the side of the boat and be promptly transferred to Puff Evans’s well-contrived “fish-car,” just aft of the centre-board. Val, too, sitting at the prow, was getting very fair luck, only that he would lose some of his best bites in watching Bar and wondering what might be the nature of the trap that he was planning for the benefit of the ghosts and the Academy bell. “Do you understand what you’re reading?” he asked, at length. “Of course not,” replied Bar. “It’s all I can do to remember it. Mr. Brayton doesn’t expect me to understand it at one reading. He told me so.” “I don’t suppose he expects you to remember it, either,” said Val. “It’s a good deal more than I could do.” “Don’t know about that,” replied Bar. “Once I understand a thing I’m sure to forget it. Never can repeat it in the same words again.” It was not very clear to Val’s comprehension, even then, but Bar worked and fished away till there came a long interval during which neither of them had so much as a nibble. “Sun’s getting too high,” said Val. “That’s what Puff told us. No use to fish any more; we’ve a tip-top string, anyhow.” “Let’s pull back, then,” said Bar. “I’ve got in all the Latin I can hold, for once. Perhaps we can get Puff to help us.” “If he only knows it isn’t real work,” said Val. “Tell him it’s play and he’ll work his head off.” The trouble with Puff Evans must have been that he had grown up to be the father of a family without in any manner ceasing to be a boy. There are a good many grown-up people in the same condition, and some of them were not very remarkable boys, either.