the point of a conundrum of
Macbeth's. We felt, some time in the fifteenth century, that this
peculiarity needed to be honourably accounted for, and the family
developed that story of the Secret Chamber, and the Horror in the house.
There is nothing in the chamber whatever,--neither a family idiot aged
three hundred years, nor a skeleton, nor the devil, nor a wizard, nor
missing title-deeds. The affair is a mere formality to account
creditably for the fact that we never see anything to laugh at--never see
the joke. Some people can't see ghosts, you know" (lucky people! thought
I), "and some can't see jokes."

"This is very disappointing," I said.

"I can't help it," said the spectre; "the truth often is. Did you ever
hear the explanation of the haunted house in Berkeley Square?"

"Yes," said I. "The bell was heard to ring thrice with terrific
vehemence, and on rushing to the fatal scene they found him beautiful in
death."

"Fudge!" replied the spectre. "The lease and furniture were left to an
old lady, who was not to underlet the house nor sell the things. She had
a house of her own in Albemarle Street which she preferred, and so the
house in Berkeley Square was never let till the lease expired. That's
the whole affair. The house was empty, and political economists could
conceive no reason for the waste of rent except that it was haunted. The
rest was all Miss Broughton's imagination, in 'Tales for Christmas Eve.'"

He had evidently got on his hobby, and was beginning to be rather
tedious. The contempt which a genuine old family ghost has for mere
parvenus and impostors is not to be expressed in mere words apparently,
for Mauth-hounds of prodigious size and blackness, with white birds, and
other disastrous omens, now began to display themselves profusely in the
Haunted Chamber. Accustomed as I had become to regard all these
appearances as mere automatic symptoms, I confess that I heard with
pleasure the crow of a distant cock.

"You have enabled me to pass a most instructive evening, most agreeable,
too, I am sure," I remarked to the spectre, "but you will pardon me for
observing that the first cock has gone. Don't let me make you too late
for any appointment you may have about this time--anywhere."

"Oh, you still believe in that old superstition about cock-crow, do you?"
he sneered. "'I thought you had been too well educated. 'It faded on
the crowing of the cock,' did it, indeed, and that in Den