"I'll leave you at home, miss, if you talk impertinences," he declared.
"Not much you won't, my bestest, belovedest Uncle! Why, I'm the leading lady of this troupe. And I expect the spectre will appear to me first of all. That's my motto: 'Spect the Spectre! How's that? Then the rest of you can inspect the spectre!"
"Vernie! don't be so excruciatingly funny," begged Braye, while Milly Landon giggled at the pretty child, whose charm and sweetness took all rudeness from her foolery.
"Perhaps we ought to call in an inspector to inspect the spectre," contributed Landon.
"There, there, Wynne," said Braye, "we'll take such stuff from an ignorant little girl but not from a grown-up man."
"Ignorant, huh!" scorned Vernie. "I'll bet _you_ couldn't have passed my examination in psychology!"
"Perhaps not," admitted Braye, "but after this trip of ours, we'll all be honour men."
"I want it thoroughly understood," said Mr. Bruce, "that I range myself on the side of the sceptics. I don't want to sail under false colours and I wish to state positively that there are no ghosts or phantasms or any such things. Moreover, I announce my intention of fooling you gullible ones, if I can."
"Oh, that isn't fair!" exclaimed Landon. "I don't believe in the things either, but I want an honest test. Why, you take away the whole point of the experiment if you're going to put up a trick on us!"
"No, no, Bruce," said the Professor, "that won't do. Come, now, give me your word there'll be no hocus-pocus or I refuse to go at all."
"If it's any sort of a real test, Hardwick, it oughtn't to be possible to fool you."
"That's true," said Eve; "and I'm not afraid of any tricks. If they are tricks, I'll know it----"
"I too," said Norma. "I'm sensitive to all psychical manifestations and if I can't tell a real phantasm from Mr. Bruce's tricks, I deserve to be fooled."
"I think it's a good thing that Mr. Bruce warned us," observed John Tracy. "It puts us on our guard. But I think the rest of us ought to agree not to do anything of that sort. We can expect and discount Mr. Bruce's little game, but if others are going to do the same, it seems to me the game isn't worth playing."
"Right you are!" declared Landon, and forthwith everybody present except Gifford Bruce solemnly pledged his or her word to do nothing tricky or fraudulent, and to preserve an open-minded, honest attitude toward any developments they might experience.