Very faithfully,
The same,
I AND MY CHIMNEY.

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