“Oh, the moon didn’t shine in at the window at all!” retorted the little fellow. “It was dark as pitch! I can see better in the dark than I can in the daylight!”
All of which meant exactly the opposite.
“Well, what was the spook doing in your room, Smart?”
“Ask me! Just floating round, I fancy. But when the old thing floated my way I just sat up and said, ‘Shoo!’ like that. The thing stopped and stretched out a hand toward me. I said, ‘Oh, Lord!’ and went right down under the bedclothes. I don’t know how long I stayed there, but when I rubbered out the spook was gone.”
“A pretty bad case of nightmare,” was the verdict, but Ted did not accept it. He insisted that something had been in his room. True, his door was locked when he got up and looked around, and the “something” was gone.
Ted was the last fellow at Fardale to be able to impress any one with such a story. They guyed him at every opportunity about it. One after another the boys came to him and asked him to tell them about the “spook.” They kept him repeating the story over and over until he became tired of it. Then when he became disgusted and refused to talk about it any more they laughed and kept up the sport by gathering around him and repeating what he had said.
Later in the day, Smart said:
“I wonder if spooks have to comb their hair. My pet comb and silver-backed hair-brush are gone. Don’t know where they could have gone to unless my spook took them.”
Of course he was advised to look around thoroughly in his room for the missing articles. He did so, but the comb and brush he could not find. Ted could not understand why any one should wish to steal the comb and brush.
The very next night Joe Savage saw the “spook.”