“Yaw, I meant dot I peen aple to peen shot der ghost py.”
“That wouldn’t hurt him any. Spooks don’t mind being shot.”
“I don’d toldt you dot? Oxcuse me! I vill slept py der open air. I don’d care apout sleepin’ in dot summerhouses.”
“Oh, say!” exclaimed Ephraim; “gol darn it! can’t you see you’re bein’ guyed. There ain’t no ghost there at all.”
“How you known dot, Efy?”
“Why, see um larf at ye! Can’t you tell by the way they act?”
But the Dutch boy was not satisfied, and it worried him greatly to think he might be visited by a ghost that night. He insisted that he would not sleep in the Summerhouse unless provided with a gun.
After supper however, Kenneth took Hans aside and explained that a bullet from a gun or a charge of grapeshot and canister out of a cannon would not have the least effect on a ghost, but that ghosts could not stand water.
“In the room where you are to sleep to-night,” said Kenneth, “there is a hose pipe with a stopcock nozzle. All you need to do is take the nozzle end of the pipe to bed with you. If the spook appears, point the nozzle at him, turn the stopcock, and let him have it. He will be knocked out in the first round.”
“Vos dot der lefel on?” asked Hans, suspiciously.