this unseemly haste," said Uncle Larry, gravely, "when
you know what really happened."

"What was it, Uncle Larry?" asked Baby Van Rensselaer. "I'm all
impatience."

And Uncle Larry proceeded:

"Eliphalet went down to the little old house at Salem, and as soon as
the clock struck twelve the rival ghosts began wrangling as before. Raps
here, there, and everywhere, ringing bells, banging tambourines,
strumming banjos sailing about the room, and all the other
manifestations and materializations followed one another just as they
had the summer before. The only difference Eliphalet could detect was a
stronger flavor in the spectral profanity; and this, of course, was only
a vague impression, for he did not actually hear a single word. He
waited awhile in patience, listening and watching. Of course he never
saw either of the ghosts, because neither of them could appear to him.
At last he got his dander up, and he thought it was about time to
interfere, so he rapped on the table, and asked for silence. As soon as
he felt that the spooks were listening to him he explained the situation
to them. He told them he was in love, and that he could not marry unless
they vacated the house. He appealed to them as old friends, and he laid
claim to their gratitude. The titular ghost had been sheltered by the
Duncan family for hundreds of years, and the domiciliary ghost had had
free lodging in the little old house at Salem for nearly two centuries.
He implored them to settle their differences, and to get him out of his
difficulty at once. He suggested they'd better fight it out then and
there, and see who was master. He had brought down with him all needful
weapons. And he pulled out his valise, and spread on the table a pair of
navy revolvers, a pair of shot-guns, a pair of dueling swords, and a
couple of bowie-knives. He offered to serve as second for both parties,
and to give the word when to begin. He also took out of his valise a
pack of cards and a bottle of poison, telling them that if they wished
to avoid carnage they might cut the cards to see which one should take
the poison. Then he waited anxiously for their reply. For a little space
there was silence. Then he became conscious of a tremulous shivering in
one corner of the room, and he remembered that he had heard from that
direction what sounded like a frightened sigh when he made the first
suggestion of the duel. Something told him that this was the domiciliary
ghost, and