After the first greetings, I plunged into business at once.
“Look here, Jack,” I said, “I want you to get me a spirit, if you can.”
“Spirits you mean!” shouted my wife’s cousin, plunging his hand into the waste-paper basket and producing a bottle with the celerity of a conjuring trick. “Let’s have a drink!”
I held up my hand as a mute appeal against such a proceeding so early in the day; but on lowering it again I found that I had almost involuntarily closed my fingers round the tumbler which my adviser had pressed upon me. I drank the contents hastily off, lest anyone should come in upon us and set me down as a toper. After all there was something very amusing about the young fellow’s eccentricities.
“Not spirits,” I explained, smilingly; “an apparition—a ghost. If such a thing is to be had, I should be very willing to negotiate.”
“A ghost for Goresthorpe Grange?” inquired Mr. Brocket, with as much coolness as if I had asked for a drawing-room suite.
“Quite so,” I answered.
“Easiest thing in the world,” said my companion, filling up my glass again in spite of my remonstrance. “Let us see!” Here he took down a large red note-book, with all the letters of the alphabet in a fringe down the edge. “A ghost you said, didn’t you? That’s G. G—gems—gimlets—gas-pipes—gauntlets—guns—galleys. Ah, here we are. Ghosts. Volume nine, section six, page forty-one. Excuse me!” And Jack ran up a ladder and began rummaging among a pile of ledgers on a high shelf. I felt half inclined to empty my glass into the spittoon when his back was turned; but on second thoughts I disposed of it in a legitimate way.
“Here it is!” cried my London agent, jumping off the ladder with a crash, and depositing an enormous volume of manuscript upon the table. “I have all these things tabulated, so that I may lay my hands upon them in a moment. It’s all right—it’s quite weak” (here he filled our glasses again). “What were we looking up, again?”
“Ghosts,” I suggested.