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in his denial of the existence of ghosts, Mrs. Otis expressed her intention of

oining the Psychical Society, a nd Washington prepared a long letter t o

Messrs. Myers and Podmore on the subject of the Permanence of

Sanguineous Stains when connecte d wit h Crime. That night a ll doubts

about the objective existence of phantasmat a w ere removed for ever.

The day had been w arm and sunny; and, in the c ool of the evening, the

whole fam ily went out to drive. They did not return home till nine o'clock,

whe n they had a light supper. The conversation in no w ay turned upon

ghosts, so there w ere not even those primary conditions of receptive

expect ation which so often precede the presentat ion of psychical

phenomena. The subjects discussed, as I have since le arned from Mr. Otis,

we re merely such as form the ordinary conversation of cultured Americans

of the bet ter c lass, such as t he imme nse superiority of Miss Fanny

Davenport over Sa ra Bernhardt as a n act ress; the difficulty of obtaining

green corn, buckwhea t c akes, and hominy, even in the best English houses;

the importance of Boston in the development of the w orld-soul; the

advantages of the baggage c heck system in railwa y travelling; and the

sweetness of the New York accent as compared to the London drawl. No

mention at all was made of the supernatural, nor w as Sir Simon de

Canterville alluded to in any w ay. At eleven o'clock the fam ily retired, andby half-past all the lights we re out. Some time a fter, Mr. Otis was

awakened by a curious noise in the corridor, outside his room. It sounded

like the clank of met al, and seem ed to be coming nearer every moment. He

got up at once, struck a match, and looked at the time. It was exactly one

o'clock. He w as quite calm, and felt his pulse, w hich was not at all

feverish. The strange noise still continued, and with it he heard distinctly

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the sound of footsteps. He put on his slippers, took a small oblong phial out

of his dressing-case, and ope ned the door. Right in front of him he sa w , in

the w an moonlight, an old man of terrible aspect. H is eyes were a s red

burning coals; long grey ha ir fell over his shoulders in mat te d coils; his

garments, which w ere of antique cut, w ere soiled and ragged, and from his

wrists and a nkles hung heavy manacles and rusty gyves.

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'My dear sir,' said Mr. Otis,'I really must insist on your oiling those

chains, and have brought you for that purpose a small bott le of the

Tamm any Rising Sun Lubricator. It is said to be c ompletely efficacious

upon one application, and there are several testimonials to that effect onthe w rapper from some of our most em inent native divines. I shall leave it

here for you by the bedroom candles, and will be happy to supply you with

more should you require it.' With these words the United Sta tes Minister

laid the bottle down on a marble table, and, closing his door, retired to rest.

For a moment the Canterville ghost stood quite mot ionless in natural

indignation; then, dashing the bottle violently upon the polished floor, he

fled down t he corridor, utte ring hollow groans, and emitt ing a ghastly greenlight. Just, howe ver, as he reached the t op of the great oak staircase, a

door was flung open, tw o little w hite-robed figures appeared, and a la rge

pillow whizzed past his head! There wa s evidently no time to be lost, so,

hastily adopting the Fourth Dimension of Space as a me ans of escape, he

vanished through the wa inscoting, and the house becam e quite quiet.

On reaching a small secret c hamber in the left w ing, he leaned up

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against a moonbeam to recover his breath, and began to try and realise his

position.

Never, in a brilliant and uninterrupted caree r of three hundred years, had

he been so grossly insulted. He thought of the Dow ager Duchess, whom he

had frightened into a fit as she stood before t he glass in her lace and

diamonds; of the four housemaids, who had gone off into hysterics when he

merely grinned at them through the curtains of one of the spare bedrooms;

of the rector of the parish, whose candle he had blown out as he wa s

coming late one night from the library, and who had been under the c are of

Sir William Gull ever since, a pe rfect mart yr to nervous disorders; and of old

Madame de Tremouillac, who, having wakene d up one morning early and

seen a ske leton seated in an armchair by the fire reading her diary, had

been confined to her bed for six w eek s with a n att ack of brain fever, and,

on her recovery, had become rec onciled to the Church, and broken off her

connection wit h that notorious sceptic Monsieur de V oltaire. He

remembered t he terrible night w hen the w icked Lord Canterville wa s found

choking in his dressing-room, wit h the knave of diamonds half-wa y down

his throat, a nd confessed, just before he died, that he ha d cheate d Charles

Jame s Fox out of 50,000 at Crockford's by means of that very card, and

swore that the ghost had made him swallow it. All his great a chievementscame back t o him again, from the butler w ho had shot himself in the pantry

because he had seen a green hand tapping at the w indow pane, t o the

beautiful Lady Stutfield, who w as alw ays obliged to we ar a black velvet

band round her throat to hide the ma rk of five fingers burnt upon her w hite

skin, and who drowned herself at last in the ca rp-pond at the e nd of the

King's Walk. With the enthusiastic egotism of the t rue artist he w ent over