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 demanded the irate historian, however, eyeing the crowd, one by one, indignantly.

"I believe you were just making that all up, Lonely O'Malley!" said Em'ly Bird, stoutly.

"Oh, go on, Lonely!" cried Betty Doyle. "Em'ly always does try to spoil everything!"

Instead of going on, Lonely slowly and deliberately reached behind him, and from some mysterious vent in the neighborhood of his hip-pocket drew forth a long-bladed butcher-knife, still stained and marked with great black blotches, which any one with half an eye could see was blood.

"There 's the knife, to prove it!" he said, with a proud unconcern of mind, as it passed gingerly from hand to hand. And then he added bitterly, half to himself, "That's the trouble of tellin' things to kids!"

From all quarters he was flattered and fawned over and begged to go on with his recountal. But he was obdurate, and would tell nothing more, beyond dropping a tantalizing hint that he guessed they 'd like to know how he screwed that ghost down in her coffin, and just what happened after that. He was even