" By this time Bushwick had his audience laughing,
perhaps the more easily because they were all more or less in a
hysterical mood, which, whether we own it or not, is always induced by an
approximation to the supernatural. He frowned and said, "NO laughing!"
and then they laughed the more. When he had waited for them to be quiet
he went on gravely, "The conditions are simply these: Each person who
chooses may interview the ghost, keeping a respectful distance, but not
so far off but that the ghost can distinctly hear a stage whisper. The
question put must be seriously meant, and it must be the question which
the questioner would prefer to have answered above everything else at the
time being. Certain questions will be absolutely ruled out, such as,
'Does Maria love me?' or, 'Has Reuben ever been engaged before?' The
laughter interrupted the speaker again, and Verrian hung his head in rage
and shame; this stupid ass was spoiling the hope of anything beautiful in
the spectacle and turning it into a gross burlesque. Somehow he felt
that the girl who had invented it had meant, in the last analysis,
something serious, and it was in her behalf that he would have liked to
choke Bushwick. All the time he believed that Miss Macroyd, whose laugh
sounded above the others, was somehow enjoying his indignation and
divining its reason.
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