第10章

In vain all protests.Next morning I went out into the road,where I had noticed a diabolical-looking old gander,that,for its doughty exploits in the way of scratching into forbidden enclosures,had been rewarded by its master with a portentous,four-pronged,wooden decoration,in the shape of a collar of the Order of the Garotte.This gander I cornered and rummaging out its stiffest quill,plucked it,took it home,and making a stiff pen,inscribed the following stiff note:

CHIMNEY SIDE,April 2.

MR.SCRIBE

Sir:-For your conjecture,we return you our joint thanks and compliments,and beg leave to assure you,that we shall remain,Very faithfully,The same,I AND MY CHIMNEY.

Of course,for this epistle we had to endure some pretty sharp raps.But having at last explicitly understood from me that Mr.

Scribe's note had not altered my mind one jot,my wife,to move me,among other things said,that if she remembered aright,there was a statute placing the keeping in private of secret closets on the same unlawful footing with the keeping of gunpowder.But it had no effect.

A few days after,my spouse changed her key.

It was nearly midnight,and all were in bed but ourselves,who sat up,one in each chimney-corner;she,needles in hand,indefatigably knitting a sock;I,pipe in mouth,indolently weaving my vapors.

It was one of the first of the chill nights in autumn.There was a fire on the hearth,burning low.The air without was torpid and heavy;the wood,by an oversight,of the sort called soggy.

"Do look at the chimney,"she began;"can't you see that something must be in it?""Yes,wife.Truly there is smoke in the chimney,as in Mr.

Scribe's note."

"Smoke?Yes,indeed,and in my eyes,too.How you two wicked old sinners do smoke!--this wicked old chimney and you.""Wife,"said I,"I and my chimney like to have a quiet smoke together,it is true,but we don't like to be called names.""Now,dear old man,"said she,softening down,and a little shifting the subject,"when you think of that old kinsman of yours,you KNOW there must be a secret closet in this chimney.""Secret ash-hole,wife,why don't you have it?Yes,I dare say there is a secret ash-hole in the chimney;for where do all the ashes go to that drop down the queer hole yonder?""I know where they go to;I've been there almost as many times as the cat.""What devil,wife,prompted you to crawl into the ash-hole?Don't you know that St.Dunstan's devil emerged from the ash-hole?You will get your death one of these days,exploring all about as you do.But supposing there be a secret closet,what then?""What then?why what should be in a secret closet but--""Dry bones,wife,"broke in I with a puff,while the sociable old chimney broke in with another.

"There again!Oh,how this wretched old chimney smokes,"wiping her eyes with her handkerchief."I've no doubt the reason it smokes so is,because that secret closet interferes with the flue.Do see,too,how the jambs here keep settling;and it's down hill all the way from the door to this hearth.This horrid old chimney will fall on our heads yet;depend upon it,old man.""Yes,wife,I do depend on it;yes indeed,I place every dependence on my chimney.As for its settling,I like it.I,too,am settling,you know,in my gait.I and my chimney are settling together,and shall keep settling,too,till,as in a great feather-bed,we shall both have settled away clean out of sight.

But this secret oven;I mean,secret closet of yours,wife;where exactly do you suppose that secret closet is?""That is for Mr.Scribe to say."

"But suppose he cannot say exactly;what,then?""Why then he can prove,I am sure,that it must be somewhere or other in this horrid old chimney.""And if he can't prove that;what,then?"

"Why then,old man,"with a stately air,"I shall say little more about it.""Agreed,wife,"returned I,knocking my pipe-bowl against the jamb,"and now,to-morrow,I will for a third time send for Mr.

Scribe.Wife,the sciatica takes me;be so good as to put this pipe on the mantel.""If you get the step-ladder for me,I will.This shocking old chimney,this abominable old-fashioned old chimney's mantels are so high,I can't reach them."No opportunity,however trivial,was overlooked for a subordinate fling at the pile.

Here,by way of introduction,it should be mentioned,that besides the fireplaces all round it,the chimney was,in the most haphazard way,excavated on each floor for certain curious out-of-the-way cupboards and closets,of all sorts and sizes,clinging here and there,like nests in the crotches of some old oak.On the second floor these closets were by far the most irregular and numerous.And yet this should hardly have been so,since the theory of the chimney was,that it pyramidically diminished as it ascended.The abridgment of its square on the roof was obvious enough;and it was supposed that the reduction must be methodically graduated from bottom to top.

"Mr.Scribe,"said I when,the next day,with an eager aspect,that individual again came,"my object in sending for you this morning is,not to arrange for the demolition of my chimney,nor to have any particular conversation about it,but simply to allow you every reasonable facility for verifying,if you can,the conjecture communicated in your note."Though in secret not a little crestfallen,it may be,by my phlegmatic reception,so different from what he had looked for;with much apparent alacrity he commenced the survey;throwing open the cupboards on the first floor,and peering into the closets on the second;measuring one within,and then comparing that measurement with the measurement without.Removing the fireboards,he would gaze up the flues.But no sign of the hidden work yet.