Fritz to the Front, or, the Ventriloquist Scamp-Hunter. Wheeler Edward Lytton

tide was rolling in close to the base of the cliff, when Fritz reached it, and so he paused and took a reconnoissance.

      Far up on the top of the bluff he saw a large, rambling, old house, in a grove of trees, but whether it was deserted or not, he could not tell.

      It looked so grim in the weird sunset light, and so isolated in its lone watch by the sea that one might easily have fancied it an abode of spooks, and their like.

      "I s'pect dot I'll haff to climb up und go around that bluff," Fritz muttered, not at all liking the idea. "Uff a veller vas to try und wade along der front, he'd like ash not get drowned, und dot vould pe a duyfel off a fix. I wonder ef der folks who lif up yonder ar' samples off dot Sample I met dis morning? Looks like ash uff it might be a ghost factory."

      He was considering what was best to do, when he felt a tap upon his shoulder, and wheeled about with a nervous start.

      Before him stood a ragged, frowsy-haired, bare-footed girl, some sixteen or seventeen years of age – a girl with a well-rounded figure of but medium stature, and a face at once peculiar and attractive, from the sparkle of its eyes, the broad grin of its mouth, and the amount of dirt gathered about it.

      She had evidently but recently emerged from the water, for her long black hair as well as her wet garments were dripping with drops which the dying sunlight transformed into diamonds.

      "Ha! ha! ha!" she laughed, putting her pretty arms akimbo, and staring hard at Fritz. "Don't I look silly, though?"

      "Vel, I don'd know apoud dot. I dink der abblication uff some water mit your face vould make you look petter ash vot you are now!" Fritz answered, somewhat puzzled.

      "Water! ha! ha! I just came out of the water. But oh! I'm so silly – that's what everybody says, and I guess it must be so; anyhow, they call me Silly Sue. Was you ever silly, boss?"

      "Vel, I don'd vas know so mooch apoud dot, vedder I vas or not," Fritz replied, with a doubtful grin. "Do I look silly?"

      "Oh! lordy! you are the silliest-looking goose I ever saw. I never saw a Yankee but what he was silly."

      "But I don'd vas be a Yankee!"

      "Get out! Don't dispute me! I know just who and what you are. You are Neptune, come up from the bottom of the sea."

      "You lie like dunder!" Fritz retorted, backing up, and beginning to get considerably alarmed, for he began to suspect that she was crazy. "I vasn't no Neptune at all – no von but Fritz Snyder. Id's a vonder you don'd call me Joner, vot swallered de valebone."

      "Nop! you're Neptune. Do you see the house up yonder?"

      "Vel, yes; vot off it?"

      "Oh! that's a high old roost. Ghosts and skeletons perch up there after dark and grin and rattle their bones at you. They don't do it to me, because I feed 'em snuff. Ha! ha! can you snuff the silly part of that outrageous gag? Say, boss, where you going, ef it ain't askin' too much?"

      "Vel, I don'd know dot myself."

      "Don't know where you're going?"

      "No; I vas huntin' vor somebody."

      "Oho! so am I! I was huntin' for some one, when I discovered something, and they called me silly because I refused to tell what. Well, good-day; swim over to England when you want to see me again."

      Then, with a peal of elfish laughter, she ran and sprung into the water, and swam around the base of the cliff out of sight.

      "I'll pet a half-dollar dot gal vas drunk or crazy, von or der odder, und der pest t'ing vor me to do is shlip avay vile I can!" Fritz ejaculated.

      To think was to act with him, and he accordingly set out clambering up the steep side of the bluff.

      In due time he reached the top and found a level spot of a couple of acres extent, in the center of which the house was situated, surrounded by sentinel rows of sighing hemlocks. A general aspect of desolation was perceptible on every hand, showing the premises to be untenanted.

      The garden was grown up with rank weeds and the house weather-worn and old, some of the shutters hanging by one hinge.

      It was a large structure of many queer gables, wings and projections, and fronted upon a road which had been used to communicate with some thoroughfare further inland.

      "Dot looks like ash uff it vas going to rain," Fritz muttered, gazing at an ominous bank of clouds that was gathering in the west. "I dink maybe I petter sday in der old house till morning, uff I und der ghosts can agree. I don'd vas much affraid off ghosts, anyhow."