With these words Mr Otis put the bottle down on a marble table, and, closing his door, retired to rest. For a moment the Canterville ghost stood frozen by astonishment and anger.

Then he threw the bottle violently down upon the polished floor, and ran off along the corridor, groaning horribly, and lit up by a ghastly green light.

Just as he reached the top of the great oak staircase, a door was flung open, two boys dressed in white appeared, and a large pillow whizzed past his head!

Obviously the ghost had to hurry, so, hastily using the Fourth Dimension of Space to escape, he vanished through the wallpaper, and the house became quite quiet.

The ghost reached a small secret chamber in the left wing, where he leaned against the wall to get back his breath, and began to try and understand what had happened.

Never, in a brilliant and uninterrupted career of three hundred years, had he been so grossly insulted.