CHAPTER II.NICK IS BOLDLY CHALLENGED.
Nick knew the old Plummer mansion well. There is not a house to match it in this country.
A hundred years and more ago it must have been the scene of strange adventures. It was built, certainly, by one who did not expect a peaceful and quiet life within it.
The thick stone walls, which look so unnecessarily massive, are really double. There are secret passages and movable panels and trap-doors enough in that house to hide a man, if a regiment of soldiers was after him.
Evidently such a place offered every chance to shrewd criminals who might have a motive for playing upon the superstitious beliefs of the present proprietor.
Anybody who couldn’t get up a respectable ghost in the old Plummer house must be a very poor fakir.
The mere fact that all t
