{"id":"01KG6GMRKS2WWDP9SZG76CW79W","cid":"bafkreiaddky5k6uu3l5oib6vlkjblrzq76qsav57fpcvocljbxfabnwdye","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":9759,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T03:55:03.883Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 17","source_file":"01KG6FXSCNX5F3D880P3YP3PKR","start_line":9682,"text":"had never before dreamed of such a revelation as Mr. Scribe’s; yet upon\r\nthe first suggestion they instinctively saw the extreme likelihood of\r\nit. In corroboration, they cited first my kinsman, and second, my\r\nchimney; alleging that the profound mystery involving the former, and\r\nthe equally profound masonry involving the latter, though both\r\nacknowledged facts, were alike preposterous on any other supposition\r\nthan the secret closet.\r\n\r\nBut all this time I was quietly thinking to myself: Could it be hidden\r\nfrom me that my credulity in this instance would operate very favourably\r\nto a certain plan of theirs? How to get to the secret closet, or how to\r\nhave any certainty about it at all, without making such fell work with\r\nthe chimney as to render its set destruction superfluous? That my wife\r\nwished to get rid of the chimney, it needed no reflection to shew; and\r\nthat Mr. Scribe, for all his pretended disinterestedness, was not\r\nopposed to pocketing five hundred dollars by the operation, seemed\r\nequally evident. That my wife had, in secret, laid heads together with\r\nMr. Scribe, I at present refrain from affirming. But when I consider her\r\nenmity against my chimney, and the steadiness with which at the last she\r\nis wont to carry out her schemes, if by hook or by crook she can,\r\nespecially after having been once baffled, why, I scarcely knew at what\r\nstep of hers to be surprised.\r\n\r\nOf one thing only was I resolved, that I and my chimney should not\r\nbudge.\r\n\r\nIn vain all protests. Next morning I went out into the road, where I had\r\nnoticed a diabolical-looking old gander, that, for its doughty exploits\r\nin the way of scratching into forbidden enclosures, had been rewarded by\r\nits master with a portentous, four-pronged, wooden decoration, in the\r\nshape of a collar of the Order of the Garotte. This gander I cornered,\r\nand rummaging out its stiffest quill, plucked it, took it home, and\r\nmaking a stiff pen, inscribed the following stiff note:--\r\n\r\n\r\n                                           ‘CHIMNEY SIDE, _April 2_.\r\n\r\n  ‘MR. SCRIBE.\r\n\r\n  ‘Sir,--For your conjecture, we return you our joint thanks and\r\n  compliments, and beg leave to assure you, that we shall remain,\r\n  very faithfully, the same,\r\n                                                 ‘I AND MY CHIMNEY.’\r\n\r\n\r\nOf course, for this epistle we had to endure some pretty sharp raps. But\r\nhaving at last explicitly understood from me that Mr. Scribe’s note had\r\nnot altered my mind one jot, my wife, to move me, among other things\r\nsaid, that if she remembered aright, there was a statute placing the\r\nkeeping in private houses of secret closets on the same unlawful footing\r\nwith the keeping of gunpowder. But it had no effect.\r\n\r\nA few days after, my spouse changed her key.\r\n\r\nIt was nearly midnight, and all were in bed but ourselves, who sat up,\r\none in each chimney-corner; she, needles in hand, indefatigably knitting\r\na sock; I, pipe in mouth, indolently weaving my vapours.\r\n\r\nIt was one of the first of the chill nights in autumn. There was a fire\r\non the hearth, burning low. The air without was torpid and heavy; the\r\nwood, by an oversight, of the sort called soggy.\r\n\r\n‘Do look at the chimney,’ she began; ‘can’t you see that something must\r\nbe in it?’\r\n\r\n‘Yes, wife. Truly there is smoke in the chimney, as in Mr. Scribe’s\r\nnote.’\r\n\r\n‘Smoke? Yes, indeed, and in my eyes, too. How you two wicked old sinners\r\ndo smoke!--this wicked old chimney and you.’\r\n\r\n‘Wife,’ said I, ‘I and my chimney like to have a quiet smoke together,\r\nit is true, but we don’t like to be called names.’\r\n\r\n‘Now, dear old man,’ said she, softening down, and a little shifting the\r\nsubject, ‘when you think of that old kinsman of yours, you _know_ there\r\nmust be a secret closet in this chimney.’\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 17"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG6GKZ3MPDDZB30GXGTJ7ATV","peer_type":"section","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG6FXSCNX5F3D880P3YP3PKR","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG2T49K0H5GDRB0G4YDTPG8H","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG6GMRKV77KTY4EVV9Y1GJ64","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG6GMRKSKV6S54P6NMKJCMD0","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T03:55:10.329Z","ts":"2026-01-30T03:55:20.555Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}