lues and chimneys, arriving at his own
room in a terrible state of dirt, disorder, and despair.

After this he was not seen again on any nocturnal expedition. The twins
lay in wait for him on several occasions, and strewed the passages with
nutshells every night to the great annoyance of their parents and the
servants, but it was of no avail. It was quite evident that his feelings
were so wounded that he would not appear. Mr. Otis consequently resumed
his great work on the history of the Democratic party, on which he had
been engaged for some years; Mrs. Otis organized a wonderful clam-bake,
which amazed the whole county; the boys took to lacrosse, euchre, poker,
and other American national games, and Virginia rode about the lanes on
her pony, accompanied by the young Duke of Cheshire, who had come to
spend the last week of his holidays at Canterville Chase. It was
generally assumed that the ghost had gone away, and, in fact, Mr. Otis
wrote a letter to that effect to Lord Canterville, who, in reply,
expressed his great pleasure at the news, and sent his best
congratulations to the Minister's worthy wife.

The Otises, however, were deceived, for the ghost was still in the
house, and though now almost an invalid, was by no means ready to let
matters rest, particularly as he heard that among the guests was the
young Duke of Cheshire, whose grand-uncle, Lord Francis Stilton, had
once bet a hundred guineas with Colonel Carbury that he would play dice
with the Canterville ghost, and was found the next morning lying on the
floor of the card-room in such a helpless paralytic state that, though
he lived on to a great age, he was never able to say anything again but
"Double Sixes." The story was well known at the time, though, of course,
out of respect to the feelings of the two noble families, every attempt
was made to hush it up, and a full account of all the circumstances
connected with it will be found in the third volume of Lord Tattle's
_Recollections of the Prince Regent and his Friends_. The ghost, then,
was naturally very anxious to show that he had not lost his influence
over the Stiltons, with whom, indeed, he was distantly connected, his
own first cousin having been married _en secondes noces_ to the Sieur de
Bulkeley, from whom, as everyone knows, the Dukes of Cheshire are
lineally descended. Accordingly, he made arrangements for appearing to
Virginia's little lover in his celebrated impersonation of "The Vampire
Mo