"No, no, Henry; it's not the least like that: it's a file working at
the bars of the pantry-window. I will stake my existence, Henry, that
it is a file."
Whenever my wife makes use of this particular form of words I know
that opposition is useless. I rise, therefore, and put on my slippers
and dressing-gown. Mrs. B. refuses to let me have the candle, because
she will die of terror if she is left alone without a light. She puts
the poker into my hand, and with a gentle violence is about to expel
me from the chamber, when a sudden thought strikes her.
"Stop a bit, Henry," she exclaims, "until I have looked into the
cupboards and places;" which she proceeds to do most minutely,
investigating even the short drawers of a foot and a half square. I
am at length dismissed upon my perilous errand, and Mrs. B. locks and
double-locks the door behind me with a celerity that almost catches
my retreating garment. My expedition therefore combines all the
dangers of a sally, with the additional disadvantage of having my
retreat into my own fortress cut off. Thus cumbrously but
ineffectually caparisoned, I peramulate the lower stories of the
house in darkness, in search of the disturber of Mrs. B.'s repose,
which, I am well convinced, is behind the wainscot of her own
apartment, and nowhere else.
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