"We had a haunted room in my quarters at Puttypoor," observed the General, twiddling the point of one of his moustaches. "It was the store-room where we kept pickles, and olives, and preserves, and plates, and jars, and glass bottles. And every night there was a confounded noise there; jars, and bottles, and things tumbling about, made a devil of a row, you know. I got Smith--my servant Smith, you know, a very respectable man--uncommon steady fellow, Smith--to watch, and he did. We kept the door closed, and Smith outside. I gave him half-a-crown a night and his supper--very well for Smith, you know. Sometimes he kept a light, and sometimes I made him sit in the dark with matches ready." "Was not he very much frightened?" asked Beatrix, who was deeply interested in the ghost. "I hope you gave him a smelling-bottle?" inquired Tom Linnett, with a tender concern. "Well, I don't suppose he was," said the General, smiling good-humouredly on pretty Beatrix, while he loftily passed by the humorous inquiry of the young gentleman. "He was, in fact, on dooty, you know; and there were occasional noises and damage done in the store-room--in fact, just the same as if Smith was not there." "Oh, possibly Smith himself among the bottles!" suggested Linnett. "He always got in as quick as he could," continued the General; "but could not see anyone. Things were broken--bottles sometimes." "How very strange," exclaimed Beatrix, charmed to hear the tale of wonder. "We could not make it out; it was very odd, you know," resumed the narrator. "_You_ weren't frightened, General?" inquired Linnett. "_No_, sir," replied the General, who held that a soldier's courage, like a lady's reputation, was no subject for jesting, and conveyed that sentiment by a slight pause, and a rather alarming stare from under his fierce grey eyebrows. "No one was frightened, I suppose; we were all men in the house, sir." "At home, I think, we'd have suspected a rat or a cat," threw in the Rector. "Some did, sir," replied the General; "and we made a sort of a search; but it wasn't. There was a capital tiled floor, not a hole you could put a ramrod in; and no cat, neither--high windows, grated; and the door always close; and every now and then something broken by night." "Delightful! That's what Mrs. Crowe, in that charming book, you know, "The Night Side of Nature," calls, I forget the name; but it's a German word, I think--the noisy ghost it means. Racket--something, isn't it, Beet?" (the short for Beatrix). "I do so _devour_ ghosts!" cried sharp old Miss Blunket, who thought Beatrix's enthusiasm became her; and chose to exhibit the same pretty fanaticism.