and appurtenances, for a term of five years. Mr. Terwilliger was the first
applicant for the hall as a dwelling to whom the agent, at the instance of
the baron, spoke in a spirit of absolute candor. The baron was well on in
years, and he did not feel like getting into trouble with a Yankee, so he
said, at his time of life. The hall had been a thorn in his flesh all his
days, and he didn't care if it was never occupied, and therefore he wished
nothing concealed from a prospective tenant. It was the agent's candor
more than anything else that induced Mr. Terwilliger to close with him for
the term of five years. He suspected that the Bangletops did not want him
for a tenant, and from the moment that notion entered his head, he was
resolved that he would be a tenant.

"I'm as good a man as any baron that ever lived," he said; "and if it
pleases Hankinson J. Terwilliger to live in a baronial hall, a baronial
hall is where Hankinson J. Terwilliger puts up."

"We certainly have none of the feeling which your words seem to attribute
to us, my dear sir," the agent had answered. "Baron Bangletop would feel
highly honored to have so distinguished a sojourner in England as yourself
occupy his estate, but he does not wish you to take it without fully
understanding the circumstances. Desirable as Bangletop Hall is, it seems
fated to be unoccupied because it is thought to be haunted, or something
of that sort, the effect of which is to drive away cooks, and without
cooks life is hardly an ideal."

Mr. Terwilliger laughed. "Ghosts and me are not afraid of each other," he
said. "'Let 'em haunt,' I say; and as for cooks, Mrs. H.J.T. hasn't had a
liberal education for nothing. We could live if all the cooks in creation
were to go off in a whiff. We have daughters too, we have. Good smart
American girls, who can adorn a palace or grace a hut on demand, not