I went and woke the butler. I waved my drapery and pointed downstairs with actions that spoke louder than words. He sat up in bed and forgot himself altogether, and used language I shall not soil this page by repeating. It appeared that he was suffering from gout--the result of dishonesty in the wine-cellar--and had only managed to get to sleep a few moments before I roused him. “’Ere ’ave I bin torn to pieces with agony for three mortal hours, and just drop off, and then you come with your beastly cold paw and wake me and bring back the torture a thousand times worse than ever. I’ll give warning; I won’t put up with you and your tomfoolery for any master alive. Why should I? Get out of this room, you little brute. Don’t stand there waving about, like a shirt on a clothes-line. Get on, get out of it, or I’ll strangle you.” I went. It was no good stopping. He couldn’t strangle me, of course; but it is impossible to explain a difficult thing like burglary, in pantomime, to a man who can hardly see straight for temper. I almost wept ghostly tears. Never before had the pathos and powerlessness of my position been so impressed upon me. In this sorry plight I sought my little friend Winifred, the Squire’s grand-daughter before mentioned. She was lying wide awake, silent and speculative, as small children will. I loomed through a screen, covered with pictures from Christmas numbers, and she arose from her cot, a wee, comical white figure, faintly illumined by a night-light. “How is you, dear doast?” she inquired. My mystic presence always gratified her. She chuckled and chirruped in baby fashion while I beckoned and moved towards the door. “You funny old doast. Stand on ’oo little head, doast, like yesterday in de torridor.” But I wasn’t there to fool. I wanted to get her out into the passage, then alarm her nurse and so the entire house. “It’s too told to do playing to-night, doast,” she said. “Cold!” I doubt if ever a phantom got up to such a temperature anywhere as I did on that occasion. Then the nurse awoke, peeped two angry eyes over her counterpane, and gave me some plainly-worded advice. “Shame on you, ghost! Ain’t you got nothing better to do than scare childer and wake decent women-folks? Be off with you, you fat old blackguard, or it’s a bell, book and candle I’ll fetch.” I only wished she would fetch a bell--and ring it. “Dood night, dear doast!” cried my small friend, as I sank through the floor into the footman’s chamber. Here further failure awaited me. I could not so much as wake the man. His was no natural sleep, but some species of loathsome hibernation peculiar to male menials and entirely beyond my power to conquer or dispel. And downstairs the inexpressible Warren was filling a sack with choice spoil and drinking dry sherry from the decanter.