All his great achievements came back to him again, from the butler who had shot himself in the pantry because he had seen a green hand tapping at the window–pane, to the beautiful Lady Stutfield, who was always obliged to wear a black velvet band round her throat to hide the mark of five fingers burnt upon her white skin, and who drowned herself at last in the carp–pond at the end of the King's Walk. With the enthusiastic egotism of the true artist, he went over his most celebrated performances, and smiled bitterly to himself as he recalled to mind his last appearance as «Red Reuben, or the Strangled Babe,» his début as «Guant Gibeon, the Blood–sucker of Bexley Moor,» and the furore he had excited one lovely June evening by merely playing ninepins with his own bones upon the lawn–tennis ground. And after all this some wretched modern Americans were to come and offer him the Rising Sun Lubricator, and throw pillows at his head! It was quite unbearable. Besides, no ghost in history had ever been treated in this manner. Accordingly, he determined to have vengeance, and remained till daylight in an attitude of deep thought.

III

The next morning, when the Otis family met at breakfast, they discussed the ghost at some length. The United States Minister was naturally a little annoyed to find that his present had not been accepted. «I have no wish,» he said, «to do the ghost any personal injury, and I must say that, considering the length of time he has been in the house, I don't think it is at all polite to throw pillows at him,» — a very just remark, at which, I am sorry to say, the twins burst into shouts of laughter. «Upon the other hand,» he continued, «if he really declines to use the Rising Sun Lubricator, we shall have to take his chains from him. It would be quite impossible to sleep, with such a noise going on outside the bedrooms.»