"I have reason to think," he answered, with tears in his eyes, "that it is a gooseberry. I was damned hungry, if you must know the truth, and having sampled the old lady's pies this morning, and had nothing to eat since, I saw the coal-hole open and ladder beneath, and the rest of it was easy. If you and the other chap had n't chased me all over the estate, I 'd have been off with my pie and no harm done. The old lady 's insane, you know, and has no manner of use for pies. The house is haunted in the bargain. When you had about winded me down in the cellar and cut me off from the ladder and chased me up here, the ghost took a hand, and if you had n't tripped me and sat on me the spirits would certainly have nailed me. O Lord, what a night!" "It's your impression then that when you got up here somebody else broke into the game." "Quite that, only I should say some_thing_, not some_body_. It was a lighter step than yours. It had its hand on me once; but I could n't touch it. Damn me," he concluded hoarsely, "it was n't there to touch!" "You are sure you speak the truth when you say that the coal-hole was open and that you found the ladder there when you came?" "No manner of doubt of it. As I have already said, I believe you to be a gentleman, and between gentlemen certain confidences may pass that would n't be possible between a gentleman and those _canaille_ down there." He jerked his head scornfully to indicate the suitors below. I bowed with such dignity as is possible in addressing a nobleman whom you have just caught in the act of lifting a gooseberry-pie from a lady's pantry,--a pie which you hold perforce in your hands. "The fact is that I was without the price of food; and to repeat, I was beastly hungry." "Poverty and hunger, my lord, are pardonable sins. And I dare say that Miss Hollister would be highly pleased to know that a gentleman of your high position--she told me herself that you were descended from the Jutish chiefs--had paid so high a compliment to the excellence of her pastry. Your only error, as I view the matter, lies in the fact that you have laid felonious hands upon a gooseberry-pie. All gooseberry pastries are sacred to Hezekiah. My impressions of Hezekiah are the pleasantest, and I cannot allow you to intervene between her and the pie I hold in my hands. If you will accompany me below, I will undertake to gain access to the pie vault, return this pie to its proper place, and hand you, at the foot of the ladder, an apple-pie in place of it. I dare say it never will be missed; but from what I know of Hezekiah, any trifling with her appetite would be a crime indictable at common law." His lordship seemed reassured, and we were about to descend by the concealed stair when he arrested me.