of his hair, his
whiskey bottle filled and overflowed, and he was himself in a condition
similar to that of a man who has fallen into a water-butt. When he
recovered from the shock, which was a painful one, he saw before him the
lady of the cavernous eyes and seaweed fingers. The sight was so
unexpected and so terrifying that he fainted, but immediately came to,
because of the vast amount of water in his hair, which, trickling down
over his face, restored his consciousness.

Now it so happened that the master of Harrowby was a brave man, and
while he was not particularly fond of interviewing ghosts, especially
such quenching ghosts as the one before him, he was not to be daunted by
an apparition. He had paid the lady the compliment of fainting from the
effects of his first surprise, and now that he had come to he intended
to find out a few things he felt he had a right to know. He would have
liked to put on a dry suit of clothes first, but the apparition declined
to leave him for an instant until her hour was up, and he was forced to
deny himself that pleasure. Every time he would move she would follow
him, with the result that everything she came in contact with got a
ducking. In an effort to warm himself up he approached the fire, an
unfortunate move as it turned out, because it brought the ghost directly
over the fire, which immediately was extinguished. The whiskey became
utterly valueless as a comforter to his chilled system, because it was
by this time diluted to a proportion of ninety per cent of water. The
only thing he could do to ward off the evil effects of his encounter he
did, and that was to swallow ten two-grain quinine pills, which he
managed to put into his mouth before the ghost had time to interfere.
Having done this, he turned with some asperity to the ghost, and said:

"Far be it from me to be impolite to a woman, madam, but I'm hanged if
it wouldn't please me better if you'd stop these infernal visits of
yours to this house. Go sit out on the lake, if you like that sort of
thing; soak the water-butt, if you wish; but do not, I implore you, come
into a gentleman's house and saturate him and his possessions in this
way. It is damned disagreeable."

"Henry Hartwick Oglethorpe," said the ghost, in a gurgling voice, "you
don't know what you are talking about."

"Madam," returned the unhappy householder, "I wish that remark were
strictly truthful. I was talking about you. It would be shillings and
pe