“Now how could it be the ghost of a witch, since the witches were all burned at the stake? You never heard of anybody who was burned having a ghost, did you?” asked Uncle Larry.
“That's an argument in favor of cremation, at any rate,” replied Dear Jones, evading the direct question.
“It is, if you don't like ghosts. I do,” said Baby Van Rensselaer.
“And so do I,” added Uncle Larry. “I love a ghost as dearly as an Englishman loves a lord.”
“Go on with your story,” said the Duchess, majestically overruling all extraneous discussion.
“This little old house at Salem was haunted,” resumed Uncle Larry. “And by a very distinguished ghost—or at least by a ghost with very remarkable attributes.”
“What was he like?” asked Baby Van Rensselaer, with a premonitory shiver of anticipatory delight.
“It had a lot of peculiarities. In the first place, it never appeared to the master of the house. Mostly it confined its visitations to unwelcome guests. In the course of the last hundred years it had frightened away four successive mothers-in-law, while never intruding on the head of the household.”
“I guess that ghost had been one of the boys when he was alive and in the flesh.” This was Dear Jones's contribution to the telling of the tale.
“In the second place,” continued Uncle Larry, “it never frightened anybody the first time it appeared. Only on the second visit were the ghost-seers scared; but then they were scared enough for twice, and they rarely mustered up courage enough to risk a third interview. One of the most curious characteristics of this well-meaning spook was that it had no face—or at least that nobody ever saw its face.”