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 fire-boards, 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 downstairs, and out of doors, he measured the entire ground area; then compared the sum total of all 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 fire-places 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 not 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.’

I eyed him in silence a moment; then spoke: ‘Your survey is concluded, Mr Scribe; be so good now as to lay your finger upon the exact part of the chimney wall where you believe this secret closet to be; or would a witch hazel wand assist you, Mr Scribe?’

‘No, sir, but a crow-bar would,’ he, with temper, rejoined.

Here, now, thought I to myself, the cat leaps out of the bag. I looked at him with a calm glance, under which he seemed somewhat uneasy. More than ever now I suspected a plot. I remembered what my wife had said about abiding by the decision of Mr Scribe. In a bland way, I resolved to buy up the decision of Mr Scribe.