The Ingoldsby Legends: Mirth and Marvels

"It is very odd, though; what can have become of them?" said Charles Seaforth, as he peeped under the valance of an old-fashioned bedstead, in an old-fashioned apartment of a still more old-fashioned manor-house; "'tis confoundedly odd, and I can't make it out at all. Why, Barney, where are they?-and where the d-l are you?" No answer was returned to this appeal; and the lieutenant, who was, in the main, a reasonable person, -at least as reasonable a person as any young gentleman of twenty-two in "the service" can fairly be expected to be, -cooled when he reflected that his servant could scarcely reply extempore to a summons which it was impossible he should hear. An application to the bell was the considerate result; and the footsteps of as tight a lad as ever put pipe-clay to belt sounded along the gallery. "Come in " said his master.-An ineffectual attempt upon the door reminded Mr. Seaforth that he had locked himself in.-"By Heaven this is the oddest thing of all," said he, as he turned the key and admitted Mr. Maguire into his dormitor