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sworn to secrecy, and we couldn't drag a single word about it out of him."
    "So something is going on, and he knows what it is, but we can't find out," Neddie said. "And if Billy won't talk, I don't see much chance for finding out—I mean, he's sort of our personal ghost. He's our friend."
    "We could ask Melvin to clarify," I said.
    "Yeah, right," Neddie said.
    "Oh, sure," Seamus said. "You've heard Melvin clarify. He just makes things muddier and muddier."
    "Well, I'm going to get to the bottom of it," I said.
    "Good luck," Neddie said.
    "You'll just be chasing your tail," Seamus said. "It's one of those ghostly secrets—you can't find out a thing."
    "Care to make a little wager that I can't find out?" I asked.
    "Okay. If you find anything out, we'll pay for your crullers for two months—when you give up, and you will, you have to buy us each crullers for a month. Fair?" Neddie asked.
    "Perfectly fair," I said.
    They have their ghost, and I have mine,
I thought.

CHAPTER 29

Mr. Wentworthstein
    Neddie's father is the Shoelace King. When you buy shoelaces, if you look at the little paper wrapper, nine times out of ten it will say WENTWORTHSTEIN SHOELACES . So they are incredibly rich. Mr. Wentworthstein likes saying that he started his fortune on a shoestring—he works it into every conversation.
    Mr. Wentworthstein does projects. One of his projects was having scientists develop a shoelace that can't be broken. It took a year, and a huge sum of money, but they came up with one—only it was half an inch thick. Not ready for the marketplace, Mr. Wentworthstein said. Another project was a toy that was supposed to become a huge fad, like the yo-yo—it was called the Shoe-la Hoop, and it was sort of like a lasso, and also a hoop you could swing around your head, and sort of dance and gyrate inside of. He got all of us kids to learn how to play with it, which was hard to do—also, it was boring. He had thousands of them made and got them into stores. Nobody bought even one. Mr. Wentworthstein's current project is the Museum of the Shoelace. Neddie's mother had made a big basketful of corn muffins, and Seamus Finn and I had been invited to help eat them. While we slathered butter and strawberry jam on the muffins, Mr. Wentworthstein told us about the Museum of the Shoelace.
    "Before I can open the museum, I have to assemble the collection," Mr. Wentworthstein said. "I already have several exhibits that will be sensational."
    "Oh, Father, no one will be interested in seeing shoelaces," Eloise said. Eloise is Neddie's sister, who is older and is going to be an actress.
    "On the contrary, daughter," Mr. Wentworthstein said. "People will flock to my museum. They will come by the thousands. For example, I have a shoelace which I am pretty sure belonged to General and later President Ulysses S. Grant. Now, that by itself is a crowd-getter. But it gets better. I have shoelaces that belonged to an ancient Roman emperor, Caligula's Ligula. I have a pair of shoelaces made by South American Indians from the skin of the electric eel—they still have a faint electric current, and we are going to fix it so they light up a tiny lightbulb. I have shoelaces that belonged to Lord Buckley. They are plaid. And of course, the longest shoelace in the world, a scale model of New York City made entirely of shoelaces, an exhibit of shoelaces of the future, in which you will see the twenty-first-century methods by which shoelaces will be manufactured, and simulated spun glass, titanium, and carbon fiber shoelaces. I have a playable violin with shoelace strings and a shoelace bow. And, there will be occasional exhibits with live animals and people—for example, I will have Mongolian tribesmen in the museum, weaving the traditional shoelaces of their people and answering questions from the public. Now, think of it, children—can you imagine a more exciting museum?"
    "These are wonderful corn muffins, Mrs.