"O blessed chance!" the Ghost exclaimed, "Thou art the only one Of all men else, who spoke me so, they always turn and run! Thou art the first, that I have seen drop sympathetic tears, Responsive to my moanings, aye for full one hundred years! And so I feel that I can speak in unreserving tone, And give thee cause for this alack! my chronic nightly groan! When I was in my thirties, I engaged to mind the spoons, Of Colonel Sir John Bouncer, of the Sixty-fifth Dragoons, And tho' of lowly stature, I am proud I was by half, More manly than the footman, by step, and chest, and calf. With frontispiece well favored, in a frame of powdered wig, I wot amongst the female sex, I joyed a game of tig, I played the captivating spark, till Colonel Bouncer caught Me jesting with my Mistress, and he spake with furious haught, Expressed him his disfavor loud, unto my Lady thus, "An' thou do not discharge the knave, 'twill cause some future fuss, The cock-a-dandy bantam, pillory graduate, and scoff On manhood, give him notice!" but no, she begged me off. * * * * * It was not long thereafter, an early postman bore A warrant for the Colonel, to start for Singapore, He sailed, and in the August, 'twas just ten months away He stayed, and he was due in town, upon the first of May, Twas on that ninth of August at twelve o'clock at night, 'Thro Bouncer Hall I wandered, to see that all was right; And in my course of searching, to check the silver stock, I chanced upon the key, with which my Lady wound the clock, A Louis clock she valued, it was on the mantel shelf In her boudoir, her habit was to wind it up herself, I brought it to her bedroom, and scratched a single knock, And asked her through the keyhole, if she had wound the clock. [Illustration] My words were scarcely uttered, when from another door, I heard a foot, that should have been that night in Singapore! I saw an eye, that should have seen that night a foreign shore, "Ha! Caitiff knave!!" He shouted, 'Twas all I heard, no more, He collared me by neck, and breech, and swept me off the floor, And bore me down the corridor, And hoisting me as light as cork, an act I could not check, He flung me down the oaken stair, and wanton cracked my neck! For that he paid the penalty, one day on Tyburn tree, Alack! it was the sorest deed, the Law could wreak for me For when it made a Ghost of him, he came, and sought me out, Where haunting at my Lady's door, I heard the self-same shout, Of "Caitiff knave!!" The pity on't! he took me unaware, Once more by gripping of my breech, and tossed me down the stair! [Illustration]