- end_line
- 718
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T07:57:45.581Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 640
- text
- glow-worm with a poker, I put it down. How long I sat spellbound and
staring there, with my body presented one way and my face another, I
cannot say; but at length I rose, and, buttoning my coat up and down,
made a sudden intrepid forced march full upon the table. And there,
near the centre of the slab, as I live, I saw an irregular little
hole, or, rather, short nibbled sort of crack, from which (like a
butterfly escaping its chrysalis) the sparkling object, whatever it
might be, was struggling. Its motion was the motion of life. I stood
becharmed. Are there, indeed, spirits, thought I; and is this one?
No; I must be dreaming. I turned my glance off to the red fire on the
hearth, then back to the pale lustre on the table. What I saw was no
optical illusion, but a real marvel. The tremor was increasing, when,
once again, Democritus befriended me. Supernatural coruscation as it
appeared, I strove to look at the strange object in a purely scientific
way. Thus viewed, it appeared some new sort of small shining beetle or
bug, and, I thought, not without something of a hum to it, too.
I still watched it, and with still increasing self-possession.
Sparkling and wriggling, it still continued its throes. In another
moment it was just on the point of escaping its prison. A thought
struck me. Running for a tumbler, I clapped it over the insect just in
time to secure it.
After watching it a while longer under the tumbler, I left all as it
was, and, tolerably composed, retired.
Now, for the soul of me, I could not, at that time, comprehend the
phenomenon. A live bug come out of a dead table? A fire-fly bug come
out of a piece of ancient lumber, for one knows not how many years
stored away in an old garret? Was ever such a thing heard of, or
even dreamed of? How got the bug there? Never mind. I bethought me
of Democritus, and resolved to keep cool. At all events, the mystery
of the ticking was explained. It was simply the sound of the gnawing
and filing, and tapping of the bug, in eating its way out. It was
satisfactory to think, that there was an end forever to the ticking. I
resolved not to let the occasion pass without reaping some credit from
it.
"Wife," said I, next morning, "you will not be troubled with any more
ticking in our table. I have put a stop to all that."
"Indeed, husband," said she, with some incredulity.
"Yes, wife," returned I, perhaps a little vaingloriously, "I have put
a quietus upon that ticking. Depend upon it, the ticking will trouble
you no more."
In vain she besought me to explain myself. I would not gratify her;
being willing to balance any previous trepidation I might have
betrayed, by leaving room now for the imputation of some heroic feat
whereby I had silenced the ticking. It was a sort of innocent deceit by
implication, quite harmless, and, I thought, of utility.
But when I went to breakfast, I saw my wife kneeling at the table
again, and my girls looking ten times more frightened than ever.
"Why did you tell me that boastful tale," said my wife, indignantly.
"You might have known how easily it would be found out. See this crack,
too; and here is the ticking again, plainer than ever."
"Impossible," I explained; but upon applying my ear, sure enough, tick!
tick! tick! The ticking was there.
Recovering myself the best way I might, I demanded the bug.
"Bug?" screamed Julia, "Good heavens, papa!"
"I hope sir, you have been bringing no bugs into this house," said my
wife, severely.
"The bug, the bug!" I cried; "the bug under the tumbler."
"Bugs in tumblers!" cried the girls; "not _our_ tumblers, papa? You
have not been putting bugs into our tumblers? Oh, what does--what
_does_ it all mean?"
"Do you see this hole, this crack here?" said I, putting my finger on
the spot.
- title
- Chunk 1