It was the silence that was unnerving, he decided. No word from Lord Harold Webb. He had sent a footman to the gentleman’s residence only to receive the reply that Webb had gone out of town.

He still smarted over the idea that Alice was only a scullery maid. Somewhere in his fat heart, he viciously hoped they gave her a hard time. In retrospect he thought he could remember all sorts of common qualities about the girl. But the late nights he had spent worrying over the silence from the three conspirators plus the heat from the fire and the effects of a heavy lunch, began to take its toll. His head nodded and in no time at all, he was asleep. His last thought before he dropped off was a certain gratitude to Webb for having saved him from ridicule.

So fast asleep was he that he did not feel the light flick of a paintbrush over his face.

He awoke with a start some two hours later and glanced at the clock in alarm. The Lord Mayor’s banquet! If he did not hurry, he would be late.

It was only a step to the Mansion House. He would walk. The club room was empty. In his hurry, he did not even feel the nimble fingers pinning a notice on his back.

It was the talk of the City coffeehouses for ever afterward… the night that Mr. Funk walked straight into the Lord Mayor’s banquet, his face painted a bright, bright blue and with a placard on his back bearing the legend, “I am in a Blue Funk.”

How they roared with laughter and clasped their sides and fell about, those City men. Mr. Funk had long been detested for his pomposity.

So, thanks to the ghost, the merchant did not escape ridicule after all.

Sir Peregrine Dunster had his hands on a fortune… literally. He had his hands tightly on the waist of Miss Hetty Withers who had just accepted his hand in marriage. She was a considerable heiress, newly in town, and for once Sir Peregrine had moved briskly into the attack before anyone else had had the chance.

Miss Withers was an ironmaster’s daughter and the ironmaster, Mr. Adam Withers, was bedazzled with the idea of his daughter becoming a lady and had allowed Sir Peregrine to pay his addresses without inquiring into his character.

“Oh, Sir Peregrine,” sighed Miss Withers, “you make me the happiest of girls.”

He smiled adoringly into her myopic eyes, ignoring her bad teeth and rabbity mouth. He did not want to kiss her. Delay it. “Why don’t you call your papa in and we’ll tell him the good news,” he laughed.

But her parents burst into the room as if they had been leaning on the outside of the door, which in fact they had.