vi.] THE RED BARON. 289

‘Assault ? you may call it a salt, or a pepper and
a mustard into the bargain, if you please. How dare
you come into a fellow’s house and break up his chairs
like this without asking leave? Why, here have I
lived two hundred and fifty years in this place, and
never a man before has had the audacity to do what
you are doing. Paint me green if I stand it!’ and
he jumped up again in his fury, coming down in
dangerous proximity to the traveller’s toes.

‘Paint you green!’ said the latter, ‘with all my
heart, so that I could make you the “ Green Man and
still,” for if you jump about in this way you'll presently
do mischief. But allow me respectfully to observe
that if you have really occupied this castle so long, its
condition reflects no little discredit upon you, whether
you be owner or tenant. It is evident that carpenters
and bricklayers have not been inside the house for
many a long year; it wants painting dreadfully, and
its general state of repair, or rather of non-repair, is
absolutely disgraceful to all concerned.’

‘What’s that to you, man?’ angrily asked the
other. ‘The castle is not yours and never will be—
why can’t you leave it to take care of itself?”

‘ Because,’ calmly replied the young man, ‘there
appears to be no inn in the village, and nowhere else
for a travellerto obtain anight’s lodging; and this being
the case, I could do nothing else except come here.’

‘But, remarked the little red man, looking the
other steadily in the face, and somewhat calming down
from his previous state of fury, ‘didn’t they tell you
the castle was haunted ?’.

‘Perhaps they did and perhaps they didn’t,’ said

U ‘