The Canterville Ghost

Hiram addresses his family the morning after their first meeting with Sir Simon’s ghost. He says it’s not polite to throw pillows at the ghost, but that, “Upon the other hand, if he really declines to use the Rising Sun Lubricator, we shall have to take his chains from him” (10). All week long, they sleep soundly, with no sounds from Sir Simon, though the blood stain appears every morning, often a different shade of red and, one morning, an emerald green.

At the end of the week, on Sunday night, the family members are woken by a loud crash in the corridor after Sir Simon knocks over a suit of armor. The twins shoot at him with their pea-shooters, and Hiram draws a revolver on the ghost and tells him, “in accordance with Californian etiquette, to hold up his hands!” (11). Sir Simon then flies past them, snuffing Washington’s candle. He ends up at the top of the stairs, where he lets out a great scream, hoping that it will scare them. Instead, Lucretia comes out of her room and offers him some of Dr. Dobell’s tincture, which she says is excellent for curing indigestion. When the twins approach him, Sir Simon flees to his room to brood about his inability to wear the suit of armor.

Several days pass before Sir Simon decides he will try a third time to frighten the family. He plans to go into Washington’s room and stab himself repeatedly in the throat. He’s angry with Washington because it’s he who keeps removing Sir Simon’s favorite blood stain. From there, he will go and frighten Mr. and Mrs. Otis. Virginia will receive a milder scare, as she hasn’t insulted him. For the twins, he will appear as a corpse, and then crawl around their room as a skeleton.

His plans are dashed when he arrives at Washington’s room and takes fright from what he thinks is another ghost. When he goes back in the morning to investigate, he finds that it’s a dummy made of a bedsheet, a turnip, a brush, and a cleaver. He takes a note from it that reads, “Ye Otis Ghostie. Ye Onlie True and Originale Spook. Beware of ye Imitationes. All others are Counterfeite” (15). Sir Simon spends the rest of the day thinking about Chanticleer.