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.

"Other questions, touching intemperance or divorce, the questioner will
feel must not be asked; though it isn't necessary to more than suggest
this, I hope; it will be left entirely to the good taste and good feeling
of the--party. We all know what the temptations of South Dakota and the
rum fiend are, and that to err is human, and forgive divine." He paused,
having failed to get a laugh, but got it by asking, confidentially,
"Where was I? Oh!"--he caught himself up--"I remember. Those of you
who are in the habit of seeing ghosts need not be told that a ghost never
speaks first; and those who have never met an apparition before, but are
in the habit of going to the theatre, will recall the fact that in W.
Shakespeare's beautiful play of 'Hamlet' the play could not have gone on
after the first scene if Horatio had not spoken to the ghost of Hamlet's
father and taken the chances of being snubbed. Here there are no chances
of that kind; the chances are that you'll wish the ghost had not been
entreated: I think that is the phrase."

In the laugh that followed a girl on Miss Macroyd's other hand audibly
asked her, "Oh, isn't he too funny?"

"Delicious!" Miss Macroyd agreed. Verrian felt she said it to vex him.