“There it is again!
“Now it’s on the roof!” he announced a few moments after. “Rolling something down—just like the other chaps said! Gee, I’m no coward, but this thing is getting my nerve.”
Though himself now considerably excited, Alex sought to reassure the MJ man. “But you know there must be some simple explanation to it,” he sent. “No one really believes in ghosts these days. Just don’t allow yourself to be frightened.”
“Yes, I know,” ticked the sounder. “That’s what I told myself before I came. It seems vastly different, though, right here on the spot, and all by yourself, and it dark as pitch outside. If there was only someone else—”
The wire abruptly closed, a moment remained so, then suddenly opened, and in signals so excitedly made that Alex could only guess at some of them, he read: “Did you hear that? Did you get that?”
“Hear what? The wire was closed to me.”
“Clooossclosd! Goed 6eavns! Whiiieeeeee Whyyy—” By an effort the frightened operator at the other end of the wire pulled himself together, and sent more plainly:
“When I stopped that time someone broke in here and said: ‘Ha ha! Hi hi! Look behind! Look beh—’”
Again the wire closed, again opened.
“Theeeereit waaawas again!”