{"id":"01KG6YH19A90R4NXT75BVX1APT","cid":"bafkreicsqthgjd36kukrl7e7rfhfcnif2n3ba3pgbe6snppqtwu4iwp5ey","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":3129,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T07:57:45.581Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 14","source_file":"01KG6YDD8GKW0DRD5H2MY1NRZ7","start_line":3043,"text":"had never dreamed of such a revelation as Mr. Scribe's; yet upon the\r\nfirst suggestion they instinctively saw the extreme likelihood of it.\r\nIn corroboration, they cited first my kinsman, and second, my chimney;\r\nalleging that the profound mystery involving the former, and the\r\nequally profound masonry involving the latter, though both acknowledged\r\nfacts, were alike preposterous on any other supposition than the secret\r\ncloset.\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 favorably\r\nto a certain plan of theirs? How to get to the secret closet, or how\r\nto have any certainty about it at all, without making such fell work\r\nwith my chimney as to render its set destruction superfluous? That my\r\nwife wished to get rid of the chimney, it needed no reflection to show;\r\nand that 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\r\nher enmity against my chimney, and the steadiness with which at the\r\nlast she is wont to carry out her schemes, if by hook or 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\r\nhad noticed a diabolical-looking old gander, that, for its doughty\r\nexploits in the way of scratching into forbidden inclosures, had\r\nbeen rewarded by its master with a portentous, four-pronged, wooden\r\ndecoration, in the shape of a collar of the Order of the Garotte. This\r\ngander I cornered and rummaging out its stiffest quill, plucked it,\r\ntook it home, and making a stiff pen, inscribed the following stiff\r\nnote:\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\r\n\r\n      We shall remain,\r\n\r\n        Very faithfully,\r\n\r\n          The same,\r\n\r\n            I AND MY CHIMNEY.\r\n\r\nOf course, for this epistle we had to endure some pretty sharp raps.\r\nBut having at last explicitly understood from me that Mr. Scribe's\r\nnote had not altered my mind one jot, my wife, to move me, among other\r\nthings said, that if she remembered aright, there was a statute placing\r\nthe keeping in private 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\r\nup, one in each chimney-corner; she, needles in hand, indefatigably\r\nknitting a sock; I, pipe in mouth, indolently weaving my vapors.\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\r\nsinners do 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\r\nthe subject, \"when you think of that old kinsman of yours, you _know_\r\nthere must be a secret closet in this chimney.\"\r\n\r\n\"Secret ash-hole, wife, why don't you have it? Yes, I dare say there is\r\na secret ash-hole in the chimney; for where do all the ashes go to that\r\ndrop down the queer hole yonder?\"\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 14"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG6YGBGPFPH23W72RDZNFT0X","peer_type":"segment","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG6YDD8GKW0DRD5H2MY1NRZ7","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG6YCG626JN4FCG8QK17CQCF","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG6YH19M8BEJAYZD95TZ6ASF","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG6YH1XCAXFZ0T9JX7PPWBA9","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T07:57:48.202Z","ts":"2026-01-30T07:57:54.287Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}