a--a--little certificate--something, say, like a steamboat
certificate, certifying that you, a competent surveyor, have
surveyed my chimney, and found no reason to believe any
unsoundness; in short, any--any secret closet in it. Would you be
so kind, Mr. Scribe?"

"But, but, sir," stammered he with honest hesitation.

"Here, here are pen and paper," said I, with entire assurance.

Enough.

That evening I had the certificate framed and hung over the
dining-room fireplace, trusting that the continual sight of it
would forever put at rest at once the dreams and stratagems of my
household.

But, no. Inveterately bent upon the extirpation of that noble old
chimney, still to this day my wife goes about it, with my
daughter Anna's geological hammer, tapping the wall all over, and
then holding her ear against it, as I have seen the physicians of
life insurance companies tap a man's chest, and then incline over
for the echo. Sometimes of nights she almost frightens one, going
about on this phantom errand, and still following the sepulchral
response of the chimney, round and round, as if it were leading
her to the threshold of the secret closet.

"How hollow it sounds," she will hollowly cry. "Yes, I declare,"
with an emphatic tap, "there is a secret closet here. Here, in
this very spot. Hark! How hollow!"