“What do you mean?”

“Why, some of those strange people who go about of nights making such unearthly noises.”

“That sounds just like Sanders,” exclaimed Uncle Reginald impatiently. “Julian, I hope you are a boy of too much good sense to pay the least attention to any thing that low, ignorant fellow may say to you. There isn’t a word of truth in it.”

“Nor about the secret passage-ways that run all through the house?”

“Not a particle. It is all moonshine.”

“Or about the old man who lives in the cellar?”

“All the veriest nonsense in the world.”

“Or about your missing things?”

“Why, as to that, I have missed some things, that’s a fact, but I know where they went. Pedro took them. He is a great rascal.”

“Why do you not discharge him if he is a thief?”