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.
Now, on the second floor the rooms were the most rambling conceivable.
They, as it were, dovetailed into each other. They were of all shapes;
not one mathematically square room among them all--a peculiarity which
by the master-mason had not been unobserved. With a significant, not to
say portentous expression, he took a circuit of the chimney, measuring
the area of each room around it; then going down stairs, and out of
doors, he measured the entire ground area; then compared the sum total
of the areas of all the rooms on the second floor with the ground area;
then, returning to me in no small excitement, announced that there was
a difference of no less than two hundred and odd square feet--room
enough, in all conscience, for a secret closet.
"But, Mr. Scribe," said I, stroking my chin, "have you allowed for the
walls, both main and sectional? They take up some space, you know."
"Ah, I had forgotten that," tapping his forehead; "but," still
ciphering on his paper, "that will not make up the deficiency."
"But, Mr. Scribe, have you allowed for the recesses of so many
fireplaces on a floor, and for the fire-walls, and the flues; in short,
Mr. Scribe, have you allowed for the legitimate chimney itself--some
one hundred and forty-four square feet or thereabouts, Mr. Scribe?"
"How unaccountable. That slipped my mind, too."
"Did it, indeed, Mr. Scribe?"
He faltered a little, and burst forth with, "But we must now allow
one hundred and forty-four square feet for the legitimate chimney.
My position is, that within those undue limits the secret closet is
contained."