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VI . The Twins ’ Tricks The next day the ghost felt very weak and tired . The excitement of the last four weeks was too much for him . His nerves were in pieces , and the smallest noise made him jump . For five days he stayed in his room . In the end he decided to give up the blood stain . The Otis family did not want it , so they did not deserve it . They were practical people , and they could not understand such things . But his appearances were a different matter . It was his duty to walk along the corridor once a week . He also had to make strange noises from the big window twice a month . His life had been very wicked , it is true . But in all ghost business he was very careful and correct . So for the next three Saturdays he walked along the corridor between midnight and three o’clock . He took off his boots and stepped very lightly . He wore a large black cloak . And he used the Rising Sun Lubricator on his chains ! This was very hard for his pride . One evening , while the family were having dinner , he took a bottle of it from Mr Otis’s bedroom . He felt a little ashamed at first . But later he had to admit that it was a good invention . It really helped him . Still , the twins did not leave him in peace . They stretched strings across the corridor , and he fell over them in the dark . One night they made a butter slide near the top of the oak staircase . In other words , they put butter on the floor to make it slippery . The ghost stepped on it and had a very bad fall . Now he was really angry . He decided to make one last effort . He wanted to show these rude schoolboys who he was ! The next night he was going to visit them in his famous part of “ Reckless Rupert , or the Headless Earl ” . He had not worn this costume for more than seventy years . The last time he wore it , he frightened the pretty Lady Barbara Modish . She was going to marry the grandfather of the present Lord Canterville . But after she saw the Headless Earl , she ran away with another man . She did not want to join a family with such a horrible ghost . For the ghost , it was a great success . It was a very difficult costume . It took him three full hours to get ready . The big leather riding boots were a little too large for him , and he could only find one of his two pistols . But on the whole he was very pleased . At a quarter past one he came out of the wall and crept down the corridor . The twins slept in the Blue Bedroom . Its door was a little open . The ghost wanted to make a great entrance , so he threw it wide open . At once a heavy jug of water fell right down on him . It made him wet to the skin . At the same moment he heard the twins laughing in their big bed .
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