He could get no further. The gentleman jumped up from his desk in an agony of terror, and, before we could prevent his departure, disappeared with an unearthly yell, through the baize door into the second apartment. The door was then hurriedly locked, and all we could do would not induce any of the occupants of the room to open it. We tried in vain all sorts of inducements, from the rattling of heavy chains up to thunder-thumps. Some little time elapsed, and then the short-sighted messenger made his appearance.
"I never told you to come up," said he, in an aggrieved tone, "and you've got me into trouble. You must be off. The Board say that your application, whatever it is, can't be entertained."
To retire was all we could do--and we did it. On regaining the street, I sorrowfully bade my Solicitor good-bye.
"Oh dear no, Sir," he said, with the ghost of a smile. "You have quite forgotten one little formality--my Bill of Costs."
Upon this he produced an enormous roll of paper! The rest of my story can be briefly told. Unable to pay my Lawyer's bill, I was compelled to seek refuge in a country where I could not be reached by the Extradition law. I took a passage in _The Flying Dutchman_, and went to Spain. I am now settled in Grenada, where I am believed by the peasantry to be an English ghost that has escaped from a branch of the Moorish Alhambra that has been recently established in Leicester Square. I find some consolation in the thought that those whom I now haunt seem to be growing rather fond of me. I trust that this is not a specimen of the national politeness, and that the affection they apparently entertain towards me is not merely assumed to save me unnecessary embarrassment.
[Illustration: INTERIORS AND EXTERIORS. No. 55.
The HOME SECRETARY, after the revelations made by a distinguished member of the Representative body of Theatrical Managers and Music Hall Proprietors that called upon him last week to protest against the further extension of Inspecting Powers to the Metropolitan Board, having expressed a wish to hear something still further of the correspondence, said to be of a blackmailing character, which was referred to in the course of the proceedings, the Deputation again called on him yesterday afternoon for the purpose of supplying him with fresh information on the subject.