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 we 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 downhill 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, tomorrow, I will 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.