"Well, there's the hoof of the Shaughraun. He carried everything before him in Ireland. He was my grandfather's, and he was entered for the Derby, and some blackguards poisoned him. It would be before your time, and his death made more stir than the death of anything that ever went on four legs, except, maybe, old Nebuchadnezzar. They made songs about it, and I have a ballad upstairs in my desk a yard long my father bought from an old woman in Abbey-street. Here's the whisky. Sure, Norah, what have you been dreaming about, and why didn't you bring the wine for the young lady? Not drink wine! Well, now, just say the word, and I'll get you some tea. Or would you like coffee? Well, well. Say 'when,' Mr. Dashwood."
"I like this room," said Miss Grimshaw, looking round at the books and the oak panelling. "It's so cosey, and yet so ghosty. Have you a ghost?"
"A which? I beg your pardon," said Mr. French, pausing in his operations with a soda-water siphon.
"A ghost."
"I believe there's an old woman without a head walks in the top corridor by the servants' bedrooms. At least, that's the story; but it's all nonsense, though it does to frighten the girls with, and get them to bed early. Who's that?"
"If you plaze, sir," said Norah, speaking through the half-open door, "Miss Effie's back from her drive and upstairs, and she's wild to see the young lady."
"That's me, I suppose," said Miss Grimshaw. "I'll go up, if I may."
"Sure, with pleasure," said Mr. French, holding the door open for her with all the grace of a Brummell, while the girl passed out.
Then he closed the door, waited till she was well out of earshot, and then, sitting down in an armchair, he "rocked and roared" with laughter.