Keep silence about his precious errand here, and you would fancy him the gentlest and most temperate of human beings; but touch the subject of his vagabond of an uncle, and the Monkton madness comes out directly.

The other night a lady asked him, jestingly of course, whether he had ever seen his uncle's ghost.

He scowled at her like a perfect fiend, and said that he and his uncle would answer her question together some day, if they came from hell to do it.

We laughed at his words, but the lady fainted at his looks, and we had a scene of hysterics and hartshorn in consequence.

Any other man would have been kicked out of the room for nearly frightening a pretty woman to death in that way; but 'Mad Monkton,' as we have christened him, is a privileged lunatic in Neapolitan society, because he is English, good-looking, and worth thirty thousand a year.