Page:The Ingoldsby Legends (Frowde, 1905).pdf/63



T 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 dormitory.

'Barney, where are my pantaloons?'

'Is it the breeches?' asked the valet, casting an inquiring eye round the apartment:—'is it the breeches, sir?'

'Yes; what have you done with them?'

'Sure then your honour had them on when you went to bed, and it's hereabout they'll be, I'll be bail;' and Barney lifted a fashionable tunic from a cane-backed arm-chair, proceeding in his examination. But the search was vain; there was the tunic aforesaid; there was a smart-locking kerseymere waistcoat; but the most important article of all in a gentleman's wardrobe was still wanting.

'Where can they be?' asked the master, with a strong accent on the auxiliary verb.

'Sorrow a know I knows,' said the man.

'It must have been the devil, then, after all, who has been