- end_line
- 10886
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T03:55:03.883Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 10802
- text
- In the morning, nothing was to be seen, but the ticking was heard. The
trepidation of my daughters returned. They wanted to call in the
neighbours. But to this my wife was vigorously opposed. We should be the
laughing-stock of the whole town. So it was agreed that nothing should
be disclosed. Biddy received strict charges; and, to make sure, was not
allowed that week to go to confession, lest she should tell the priest.
I stayed home all that day; every hour or two bending over the table,
both eye and ear. Toward night, I thought the ticking grew more
distinct, and seemed divided from my ear by a thinner and thinner
partition of the wood. I thought, too, that I perceived a faint heaving
up, or bulging of the wood, in the place where I had placed the tumbler.
To put an end to the suspense, my wife proposed taking a knife and
cutting into the wood there; but I had a less impatient plan; namely,
that she and I should sit up with the table that night, as, from present
symptoms, the bug would probably make its appearance before morning. For
myself, I was curious to see the first advent of the thing--the first
dazzle of the chick as it chipped the shell.
The idea struck my wife not unfavourably. She insisted that both Julia
and Anna should be of the party, in order that the evidence of their
senses should disabuse their minds of all nursery nonsense. For that
spirits should tick, and that spirits should take unto themselves the
form of bugs, was, to my wife, the most foolish of all foolish
imaginations. True, she could not account for the thing; but she had all
confidence that it could be, and would yet be, somehow explained, and
that to her entire satisfaction. Without knowing it herself, my wife was
a female Democritus. For my part, my present feelings were of a mixed
sort. In a strange and not unpleasing way, I gently oscillated between
Democritus and Cotton Mather. But to my wife and daughters I assumed to
be pure Democritus--a jeerer at all tea-table spirits whatever.
So, laying in a good supply of candles and crackers, all four of us sat
up with the table, and at the same time sat round it. For a while my
wife and I carried on an animated conversation. But my daughters were
silent. Then my wife and I would have had a rubber of whist, but my
daughters could not be prevailed upon to join. So we played whist with
two dummies literally; my wife won the rubber and, fatigued with
victory, put away the cards.
Half-past eleven o’clock. No sign of the bug. The candles began to burn
dim. My wife was just in the act of snuffing them, when a sudden,
violent, hollow, resounding, rumbling, thumping was heard.
Julia and Anna sprang to their feet.
‘All well!’ cried a voice from the street. It was the watchman, first
ringing down his club on the pavement, and then following it up with
this highly satisfactory verbal announcement.
‘All well! Do you hear that, my girls?’ said I, gaily.
Indeed it was astonishing how brave as Bruce I felt in company with
three women, and two of them half frightened out of their wits.
I rose for my pipe, and took a philosophic smoke.
Democritus forever, thought I.
In profound silence, I sat smoking, when lo!--pop! pop! pop!--right
under the table, a terrible popping.
This time we all four sprang up, and my pipe was broken.
‘Good heavens! what’s that?’
‘Spirits! spirits!’ cried Julia.
‘Oh, oh, oh!’ cried Anna.
‘Shame!’ said my wife, ‘it’s that new bottled cider, in the cellar,
going off. I told Biddy to wire the bottles to-day.’
I shall here transcribe from memoranda, kept during part of the night.
‘One o’clock. No sign of the bug. Ticking continues. Wife getting
sleepy.
‘Two o’clock. No sign of the bug. Ticking intermittent. Wife fast
asleep.
‘Three o’clock. No sign of the bug. Ticking pretty steady. Julia
and Anna getting sleepy.
- title
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