Nightmare Abbey by Thomas Love Peacock

It was the custom of the Honourable Mr. Listless, on adjourning from the bottle to the ladies, to retire for a few moments to make a second toilette, that he might present himself in becoming taste. Fatout, attending as usual, appeared with a countenance of great dismay, and informed his master that he had just ascertained that the abbey was haunted. Mrs. Hilary's gentlewoman, for whom Fatout had lately conceived a tendresse, had been, as she expressed it, "fritted out of her seventeen senses" the preceding night, as she was retiring to her bedchamber, by a ghastly figure which she had met stalking along one of the galleries, wrapped in a white shroud, with a bloody turban on its head. She had fainted away with fear; and, when she recovered, she found herself in the dark, and the figure was gone. "Sacre -- cochon -- bleu! " exclaimed Fatout, giving very deliberate emphasis to every portion of his terrible oath -- "I vould not meet de revenant, de ghost -- non -- not for all de bowl-de-ponch in de vorld."

"Fatout," said the Honourable Mr. Listless, "did I ever see a ghost?"