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How strange that henceforth little White was the champion of Jean Poquelin! In season and out of season–wherever a word was uttered against him–the Secretary, with a quiet, aggressive force that instantly arrested gossip, demanded upon what authority the statement or conjecture was made; but as he did not condescend to explain his own remarkable attitude, it was not long before the disrelish and suspicion which had followed Jean Poquelin so many years fell also upon him.

It was only the next evening but one after his adventure that he made himself a source of sullen amazement to one hundred and fifty boys, by ordering them to desist from their wanton hallooing. Old Jean Poquelin, standing and shaking his cane, rolling out his long-drawn maledictions, paused and stared, then gave the Secretary a courteous bow and started on. The boys, save one, from pure astonishment, ceased but a ruffianly little Irish lad, more daring than any had yet been, threw a big hurtling clod, that struck old Poquelin between the shoulders and burst like a shell. The enraged old man wheeled with uplifted staff to give chase to the scampering vagabond; and–he may have tripped, or he may not, but he fell full length. Little White hastened to help him up, but he waved him off with a fierce imprecation and staggering to his feet resumed his way homeward. His lips were reddened with blood.

Little White was on his way to the meeting of the Board. He would have given all he dared spend to have staid away, for he felt both too fierce and too tremulous to brook the criticisms that were likely to be made.

“I can’t help it, gentlemen; I can’t help you to make a case against the old man, and I’m not going to.”

“We did not expect this disappointment, Mr. White.”

“I can’t help that, sir. No, sir; you had better not appoint any more investigations. Somebody’ll investigate himself into trouble. No, sir; it isn’t a threat, it is only my advice, but I warn you that whoever takes the task in hand will rue it to his dying day–which may be hastened, too.”

The President expressed himself “surprised.”

“I don’t care a rush,” answered little White, wildly and foolishly. “I don’t care a rush if you are, sir. No, my nerves are not disordered; my head’s as clear as a bell. No, I’m not excited.” A Director remarked that the Secretary looked as though he had waked from a nightmare.

“Well, sir, if you want to know the fact, I have; and if you choose to cultivate old Poquelin’s society you can have one, too.”

“White,” called a facetious member, but White did not notice. “White,” he called again.

“What?” demanded White, with a scowl.

“Did you see the ghost?”

“Yes, sir; I did,” cried White, hitting the table, and handing the President a paper which brought the Board to other business.

The story got among the gossips that somebody (they were afraid to say little White) had been to the Poquelin mansion by night and beheld something appalling. The rumor was but a shadow of the truth, magnified and distorted as is the manner of shadows. He had seen skeletons walking, and had barely escaped the clutches of one by making the sign of the cross.

Some madcap boys with an appetite for the horrible plucked up courage to venture through the dried marsh by the cattle-path, and come before the house at a spectral hour when the air was full of bats. Something which they but half saw–half a sight was enough–sent them tearing back through the willow-brakes and acacia bushes to their homes, where they fairly dropped down, and cried:

“Was it white?” “No–yes–nearly so–we can’t tell–but we saw it.” And one could hardly doubt, to look at their ashen faces, that they had, whatever it was.

“If that old rascal lived in the country we come from,” said certain Americains, “he’d have been tarred and feathered before now, wouldn’t he, Sanders?”