- end_line
- 8397
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:48:26.985Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 8348
- text
- recall how I had more than once observed this same middle-aged
gentleman, and how that toward the close of one of Jimmy’s dinners he
would sit at the table pretending to be earnestly talking with beaming
Jimmy, but all the while, with a half-furtive sort of tremulous
eagerness and hastiness, pour down glass after glass of noble wine, as
if now, while Jimmy’s bounteous sun was at meridian, was the time to
make his selfish hay.
At last I met a person famed for his peculiar knowledge of whatever was
secret or withdrawn in the histories and habits of noted people. When I
inquired of this person where Jimmy could possibly be, he took me close
to Trinity Church rail, out of the jostling of the crowd, and whispered
me, that Jimmy had the evening before entered an old house of his
(Jimmy’s) in C---- Street, which old house had been for a time
untenanted. The inference seemed to be that perhaps Jimmy might be
lurking there now. So getting the precise locality, I bent my steps in
that direction, and at last halted before the house containing the room
of roses. The shutters were closed, and cobwebs were spun in their
crescents. The whole place had a dreary, deserted air. The snow lay
unswept, drifted in one billowy heap against the porch, no footprint
tracking it. Whoever was within, surely that lonely man was an abandoned
one. Few or no people were in the street; for even at that period the
fashion of the street had departed from it, while trade had not as yet
occupied what its rival had renounced.
Looking up and down the sidewalk a moment, I softly knocked at the door.
No response. I knocked again, and louder. No one came. I knocked and
rung both; still without effect. In despair I was going to quit the
spot, when, as a last resource, I gave a prolonged summons, with my
utmost strength, upon the heavy knocker, and then again stood still;
while from various strange old windows up and down the street, various
strange old heads were thrust out in wonder at so clamorous a stranger.
As if now frightened from its silence, a hollow, husky voice addressed
me through the keyhole.
‘Who are you?’ it said.
‘A friend.’
‘Then shall you not come in,’ replied the voice, more hollowly than
before.
Great Heaven! this is not Jimmy Rose, thought I, starting. This is the
wrong house. I have been misdirected. But still, to make all sure, I
spoke again.
‘Is James Rose within there?’
No reply.
- title
- Chunk 3