After a tolerable dinner, he was sitting over a bottle of the port which he prized beyond anything else his succession had brought him, when the door of the dining-room opened suddenly, and the butler appeared, pale with terror.
“My lord! my lord!” he stammered, as he closed the door behind him.
“Well? What the devil’s the matter now? Whose cow’s dead?”
“Your lordship didn’t hear it then?” faltered the butler.
“You’ve been drinking, Bings,” said the marquis, lifting his seventh glass of port.
“I didn’t say I heard it, my lord.”
“Heard what—in the name of Beelzebub?”
“The ghost, my lord.”
“The what?” shouted the marquis.
“That’s what they call it, my lord. It’s all along of having that wizard’s chamber in the house, my lord.”