“Why, sir; some of the men passing there at night say they see lights and hear sounds in the cabin, though no one from the estate goes there. A child died in the house last spring, and—well, you know how some of these people are!”
“Ghosts!” cried Ardmore. “The property is growing more valuable all the time! Tell them that whoever captures the ghost and brings it here shall have a handsome present. So far it’s only a light in an abandoned house—is that it?”
“Well, they say it’s very strange,” and it was clear that the German was not wholly satisfied to have his employer laugh off the story.
“Cheer up, Paul. We have bigger business on hand than the chasing of ghosts just now. When we get through with these other things I’ll go over there myself and take a look at the spook.”
As Paul hurried away, Jerry seized a pen and wrote this message:
Rutherford Gillingwater,
Adjutant-General, Camp Dangerfield,
Azbell, N. C.:
Move all available troops by shortest route to Kildare at once and report to me personally at Ardsley. Make no statements to newspapers. Answer.
Dangerfield,
Governor.
“I guess that will bring him running,” said Ardmore, calling a servant and ordering the message despatched immediately. “But when he comes, expecting to report to the governor and finds that he isn’t here, what do you suppose he will do?”
“Mr. Ardmore,” began Jerry, in the tone of sweet tolerance with which one arraigns a hopeless child—“Mr. Ardmore, there are times when you tax my patience severely. You don’t seem to grasp the idea that we are not making explanations to inferiors in our administration. Colonel Gillingwater will undoubtedly be a good deal surprised to get that message, but when the first shock is over he will obey the orders of his commander-in-chief. And the fact that he is ordered to report to Ardsley will not be lost on him, for he will see in that a possible social opportunity, and a chance to wear some of his uniforms that he has never worn before. He will think that papa is really here to test the efficiency of the troops, and that as papa is a guest at Ardsley, which we know he isn’t, there will probably be some great social functions in this house, with papa’s staff dressed up and all shiny in gold braid. Since Rutherford Gillingwater had the typhoid fever during the Spanish War I have not been sure that he is as much interested in fighting as he is in the purely circus work of being a soldier. I just now recall that when papa was about to order out the troops to stop a railroad strike last spring, Rutherford Gillingwater went to all the trouble of having tonsilitis, and was so ill that he could hardly leave his room even after the strike had been settled by arbitration. If he knew that there was likely to be a terrible battle over here instead of nice long dinners and toasts to ‘The Old North State,’ ‘Our Governor,’ and ‘The Governor’s Daughter,’ his old wounds, that he never had, might trouble him so that they’d have to wrap him up in cotton and carry him home.”