“David spanked the Ph’listines,” explained Mermaid. Ho Ha and the keeper eyed each other and then looked perplexedly at the red-haired mite. “How do you know he spanked the Philistines?” ventured the keeper.
“Why, it says he smote—that means struck—them ‘hip and thigh,’” she replied. “I’ll be awful glad when I can read about it myself. David threw a stone at Gollyath and killed him. Maybe a good spanking was all Gollyath needed.”
“Maybe,” assented Cap’n Smiley. Ho Ha was speechless. The keeper looked at him. “See your uncle, Mermaid,” he directed. “Living up to his name, isn’t he?”
The child caught the contagion of laughter and bubbled with it herself. “Do tell me what’s so funny, Uncle Ho,” she begged. “Please do!”
“A ghost just told me a joke,” said Ho Ha, looking at her with twinkling eyes. Mermaid was alert and excited at once. She believed in ghosts, not only because she was seven years old but because she lived on the Great South Beach where ghosts are natural and both respectable and respected. She clamoured to hear the joke. Ho Ha considered. He did not know as he ought to tell her; perhaps the ghost would not like that; it might want to tell Mermaid itself.
“Could you tell me what ghost it is?” the youngster besought him. “Was it the Duneswoman?”
“No,” Ho Ha answered. “It was one of the pirates. One of Kidd’s men. One of those fellows with gold earrings and black whiskers. Well—I don’t know’s there’s any harm in my telling you. He said if Kidd had been spanked proper as a boy——” Ho Ha stopped, as if no more need be said, and shook his head with a regretful air. Mermaid remarked:
“Do you suppose, Uncle Ho, that Mrs. Biggles spanks Mr. Biggles?”
“No doubt she has to sometimes,” agreed Ho Ha, with perfect seriousness.
Mermaid emptied her apron of a pint of plums. Her mind slipped back to ghosts.