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 b