- end_line
- 9531
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:48:26.985Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 9456
- text
- forty-four square feet of good ground, but likewise a considerable
interest upon a considerable principal?’
‘How?’
‘Look, sir,’ said he, taking a bit of red chalk from his pocket, and
figuring against a whitewashed wall, ‘twenty times eight is so and so;
then forty-two times thirty-nine is so and so--ain’t it, sir? Well, add
those together, and subtract this here, then that makes so and so,’
still chalking away.
To be brief, after no small ciphering, Mr. Scribe informed me that my
chimney contained, I am ashamed to say how many thousand and odd
valuable bricks.
‘No more,’ said I, fidgeting. ‘Pray now, let us have a look above.’
In that upper zone we made two more circumnavigations for the first and
second floors. That done, we stood together at the foot of the stairway
by the front door; my hand upon the knob, and Mr. Scribe hat in hand.
‘Well, sir,’ said he, a sort of feeling his way, and, to help himself,
fumbling with his hat, ‘well, sir, I think it can be done.’
‘What, pray, Mr. Scribe; _what_ can be done?’
‘Your chimney, sir; it can without rashness be removed, I think.’
‘_I_ will think of it, too, Mr. Scribe,’ said I, turning the knob, and
bowing him toward the open space without; ‘I will _think_ of it, sir; it
demands consideration; much obliged to ye; good-morning, Mr. Scribe.’
‘It is all arranged, then,’ cried my wife with great glee, bursting from
the nighest room.
‘When will they begin?’ demanded my daughter Julia.
‘To-morrow?’ asked Anna.
‘Patience, patience, my dears,’ said I, ‘such a big chimney is not to be
abolished in a minute.’
Next morning it began again.
‘You remember the chimney,’ said my wife.
‘Wife,’ said I, ‘it is never out of my house, and never out of my mind.’
‘But when is Mr. Scribe to begin to pull it down?’ asked Anna.
‘Not to-day, Anna,’ said I.
‘_When_, then?’ demanded Julia, in alarm.
Now, if this chimney of mine was, for size, a sort of belfry, for
ding-donging at me about it, my wife and daughters were a sort of bells,
always chiming together, or taking up each other’s melodies at every
pause, my wife the key-clapper of all. A very sweet ringing, and
pealing, and chiming, I confess; but then, the most silvery of bells
may, sometimes, dismally toll, as well as merrily play. And as touching
the subject in question, it became so now. Perceiving a strange relapse
of opposition in me, wife and daughters began a soft and dirge-like
melancholy tolling over it.
At length my wife, getting much excited, declared to me, with pointed
finger, that so long as that chimney stood, she should regard it as the
monument of what she called my broken pledge. But finding this did not
answer, the next day, she gave me to understand that either she or the
chimney must quit the house.
Finding matters coming to such a pass, I and my pipe philosophised over
them a while, and finally concluded between us, that little as our
hearts went with the plan, yet for peace’ sake, I might write out the
chimney’s death-warrant, and, while my hand was in, scratch a note to
Mr. Scribe.
- title
- Chunk 13