The Canterville Ghost

I have to tell you that the ghost really did not want to use the Rising Sun Lubricator, even though he knew it would protect him from the family. In the end, he waited until the family were eating their dinner. Then he went very quietly into Mr. Otis's bedroom and took away the bottle with the oil in it. He felt rather embarrassed about using the oil, but he had to admit that that it was very good oil and it did what he wanted it to do, which was to quieten the noise of his chains.

But even though he did all these things, he still had problems. Sometimes, the twins stretched string across the corridor to make him fall over in the dark. Once the twins put butter on the floor all the way from one of the big rooms to the top of the stairs. The ghost slipped on the butter, and hurt himself quite badly. This made him so angry that he decided that he would have one last try to make the family at least a little bit scared of him. He decided he would disguise himself as a ghost without a head, and visit the bad-mannered young Americans the next night

The ghost had used this disguise seventy years ago. That time he had wanted to frighten the pretty Lady Barbara Modish who was going to marry Lord Canterville's grandfather. After she had seen the ghost, she decided that she was not going to marry him after all. Instead she ran away and married a handsome young man called Jack Castletown. She said that she really didn't want to marry someone who belonged to a family that allowed horrible ghosts to walk up and down in the garden during the evening>. Poor Jack was afterwards killed in a duel with Lord Canterville in a park in London, and Lady Barbara died of a broken heart soon afterward. So, in every way, the ghost's disguise had been a great success.