night, also, my wife will start as from sleep, professing to hear
ghostly noises from the secret closet. Assailed on all sides, and
in all ways, small peace have I and my chimney.

Were it not for the baggage, we would together pack up and remove
from the country.

What narrow escapes have been ours! Once I found in a drawer a
whole portfolio of plans and estimates. Another time, upon
returning after a day's absence, I discovered my wife standing
before the chimney in earnest conversation with a person whom I
at once recognized as a meddlesome architectural reformer, who,
because he had no gift for putting up anything was ever intent
upon pulling them down; in various parts of the country having
prevailed upon half-witted old folks to destroy their
old-fashioned houses, particularly the chimneys.

But worst of all was, that time I unexpectedly returned at early
morning from a visit to the city, and upon approaching the house,
narrowly escaped three brickbats which fell, from high aloft, at
my feet. Glancing up, what was my horror to see three savages, in
blue jean overalls in the very act of commencing the
long-threatened attack. Aye, indeed, thinking of those three
brickbats, I and my chimney have had narrow escapes.

It is now some seven years since I have stirred from my home. My
city friends all wonder why I don't come to see them, as in
former times. They think I am getting sour and unsocial. Some say
that I have become a sort of mossy old misanthrope, while all the
time the fact is, I am simply standing guard over my mossy old