“Oh, you still believe in that old superstition about cock-crow, do you?” he sneered. “’I thought you had been too well educated.  ’It faded on the crowing of the cock,’ did it, indeed, and that in Denmark too,—­almost within the Arctic Circle!  Why, in those high latitudes, and in summer, a ghost would not have an hour to himself on these principles.  Don’t you remember the cock Lord Dufferin took North with him, which crowed at sunrise, and ended by crowing without intermission and going mad, when the sun did not set at all?  You must observe that any rule of that sort about cock-crow would lead to shocking irregularities, and to an early-closing movement for spectres in summer, which would be ruinous to business—­simply ruinous—­and, in these days of competition, intolerable.”

This was awful, for I could see no way of getting rid of him.  He might stay to breakfast, or anything.

“By the way,” he asked, “who does the Cock at the Lyceum just now?  It is a small but very exacting part—­’Act I. scene I. Cock crows.’”

“I believe Mr. Irving has engaged a real fowl, to crow at the right moment behind the scenes,” I said.  “He is always very particular about these details.  Quite right too.  ’The Cock, by kind permission of the Aylesbury Dairy Company,’ is on the bills.  They have no Cock at the Francais; Mounet Sully would not hear of it.”

I knew nothing about it, but if this detestable spectre was going to launch out concerning art and the drama there would be no sleep for me.

“Then the glow-worm,” he said—­“have they a real glow-worm for the Ghost’s ‘business’ (Act I. scene 5) when he says?—­

         “’Fare thee well at once,
   The glow-worm shows the matin to be near,
   And ‘gins to pale his ineffectual fire.’

Did it ever strike you how inconsistent that is?  Clearly the ghost appeared in winter; don’t you remember how they keep complaining of the weather?

“’For this relief much thanks; ‘tis bitter cold,’

and

   “‘The air bites shrewdly:  it is very cold.’”

“Horatio blows on his hands to warm them, at the Francais,” I interrupted.

“Quite right; good business,” said he; “and yet they go on about the glow-worms in the neighbourhood!  Most incongruous.  How does Furnivall take it?  An interpolation by Middleton?”

I don’t like to be rude, but I admit that I hate being bothered about Shakespeare, and I yawned.

“Good night,” he said snappishly, and was gone.

Presently I heard him again, just as I was dropping into a doze.

“You won’t think, in the morning, that this was all a dream, will you?  Can I do anything to impress it on your memory?  Suppose I shrivel your left wrist with a touch of my hand?  Or shall I leave ’a sable score of fingers four’ burned on the table?  Something of that sort is usually done.”

“Oh, pray don’t take the trouble,” I said.  “I’m sure Lady Perilous would not like to have the table injured, and she might not altogether believe my explanation.  As for myself, I’ll be content with your word for it that you were really here.  Can I bury your bones for you, or anything?  Very well, as you must be off, good night!”