"If the ghost is—all that remains of the gentleman over the fireplace," said Mrs. Dashwood, "I hope he doesn't appear often." She was still glancing back at the portrait.
"Isn't it exciting?" said Gwen. "The ghost appears whenever anything is going to happen——"
"My dear Gwen," said Lady Dashwood, "in that case the ghost might as well bring his bag and baggage and remain here."
"What sort of ghost?" asked Mrs. Dashwood.
"Oh, only an eighteenth-century ghost—the ghost of the college barber," said Lady Dashwood. "When that man was Warden, the college barber went and cut his throat in the Warden's Library."
"What for?" asked Mrs. Dashwood simply.
"Because the Warden insisted on his doing the Fellows' hair in the new elaborate style of the period—on his old wages."
Mrs. Dashwood pondered, still looking at the portrait.
"I should have cut the Warden's throat—not my own," she said, "if I had, on my old wages, to curl and crimp instead of merely putting a bowl on the gentlemen's heads and snipping round."
"But he had his revenge," said Gwen eagerly, "he comes and shows himself in the Library when a Warden dies."