"When Sam arrived, nobody disputed his title to the property, except the ghost; but Sam had seen a good deal of hard service, and declared that he would not be choused out of his patrimony for all the ghosts in the parish; and, in spite of the persuasions of the villagers, resolved to take up his abode there forthwith. Sam accordingly laid in a supply of stores, including a month's supply of tobacco and rum. He first made the place water-tight, then made a fire sufficient to roast an ox, and when night arrived made a jorum of grog, a little stiff, to keep away the damp. This done, he lit his pipe, and began to cook a steak for his supper. The old mill, for the first time since the decease of the former proprietor, was filled with the savory odor of roast beef."
"And there are worse odors than that," remarked Jack. "Whilst the steak was frizzling, he took a swig at the grog; and, thinking one side was done, he gave the gridiron a twist, which sent the steak a little way up the chimney, and, strange to say, it never came down again.
"'Ten thousand What's-a-names,' cried Sam, 'where's my steak?'
"No answer was vouchsafed to this query; he looked up the chimney, and could see no one."
"The steak had really disappeared then?" said Jack, inquiringly.
"Yes, not a fragment remained; but he had more beef, so he cut off another; and, as his head had got a little middled with the grog, he thought it just possible that he might have capsized the gridiron into the fire, so he quietly recommenced the operation."
"And the second steak disappeared like the first?" "Yes, Master Fritz, with this difference—there was a dead man's thigh-bone in its place."
"An awkward transformation for a hungry man," said Jack.
"'Here's a go!' cried Sam, like to burst his sides with laughing, 'they expect to frighten me with bones, do they? they've got the wrong man—been played too many tricks of that kind at sea to be scared by that sort of thing. Ha, ha, ha! capital joke though.'"
"Your friend Sam must have been a merry fellow, Willis."