{"id":"01KG8AK6KVDCQAR40X1GB31EYM","cid":"bafkreigu25sfwsuhjozbdouf5akdle4flutss2c76juytltqqxetddazce","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":756,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:47:56.335Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 10","source_file":"01KG89J1C1N72JCD0ZBGTBX0EX","start_line":657,"text":"I still watched it, and with still increasing self-possession.\r\nSparkling and wriggling, it still continued its throes. In another\r\nmoment it was just on the point of escaping its prison. A thought\r\nstruck me. Running for a tumbler, I clapped it over the insect just in\r\ntime to secure it.\r\n\r\nAfter watching it a while longer under the tumbler, I left all as it\r\nwas, and, tolerably composed, retired.\r\n\r\nNow, for the soul of me, I could not, at that time, comprehend the\r\nphenomenon. A live bug come out of a dead table? A fire-fly bug come\r\nout of a piece of ancient lumber, for one knows not how many years\r\nstored away in an old garret? Was ever such a thing heard of, or\r\neven dreamed of? How got the bug there? Never mind. I bethought me\r\nof Democritus, and resolved to keep cool. At all events, the mystery\r\nof the ticking was explained. It was simply the sound of the gnawing\r\nand filing, and tapping of the bug, in eating its way out. It was\r\nsatisfactory to think, that there was an end forever to the ticking. I\r\nresolved not to let the occasion pass without reaping some credit from\r\nit.\r\n\r\n\"Wife,\" said I, next morning, \"you will not be troubled with any more\r\nticking in our table. I have put a stop to all that.\"\r\n\r\n\"Indeed, husband,\" said she, with some incredulity.\r\n\r\n\"Yes, wife,\" returned I, perhaps a little vaingloriously, \"I have put\r\na quietus upon that ticking. Depend upon it, the ticking will trouble\r\nyou no more.\"\r\n\r\nIn vain she besought me to explain myself. I would not gratify her;\r\nbeing willing to balance any previous trepidation I might have\r\nbetrayed, by leaving room now for the imputation of some heroic feat\r\nwhereby I had silenced the ticking. It was a sort of innocent deceit by\r\nimplication, quite harmless, and, I thought, of utility.\r\n\r\nBut when I went to breakfast, I saw my wife kneeling at the table\r\nagain, and my girls looking ten times more frightened than ever.\r\n\r\n\"Why did you tell me that boastful tale,\" said my wife, indignantly.\r\n\"You might have known how easily it would be found out. See this crack,\r\ntoo; and here is the ticking again, plainer than ever.\"\r\n\r\n\"Impossible,\" I explained; but upon applying my ear, sure enough, tick!\r\ntick! tick! The ticking was there.\r\n\r\nRecovering myself the best way I might, I demanded the bug.\r\n\r\n\"Bug?\" screamed Julia, \"Good heavens, papa!\"\r\n\r\n\"I hope sir, you have been bringing no bugs into this house,\" said my\r\nwife, severely.\r\n\r\n\"The bug, the bug!\" I cried; \"the bug under the tumbler.\"\r\n\r\n\"Bugs in tumblers!\" cried the girls; \"not _our_ tumblers, papa? You\r\nhave not been putting bugs into our tumblers? Oh, what does--what\r\n_does_ it all mean?\"\r\n\r\n\"Do you see this hole, this crack here?\" said I, putting my finger on\r\nthe spot.\r\n\r\n\"That I do,\" said my wife, with high displeasure. \"And how did it come\r\nthere? What have you been doing to the table?\"\r\n\r\n\"Do you see this crack?\" repeated I, intensely.\r\n\r\n\"Yes, yes,\" said Julia; \"that was what frightened me so; it looks so\r\nlike witch-work.\"\r\n\r\n\"Spirits! spirits!\" cried Anna.\r\n\r\n\"Silence!\" said my wife. \"Go on, sir, and tell us what you know of the\r\ncrack.\"\r\n\r\n\"Wife and daughters,\" said I, solemnly, \"out of that crack, or hole,\r\nwhile I was sitting all alone here last night, a wonderful--\"\r\n\r\nHere, involuntarily, I paused, fascinated by the expectant attitudes\r\nand bursting eyes of Julia and Anna.\r\n\r\n\"What, what?\" cried Julia.\r\n\r\n\"A bug, Julia.\"\r\n\r\n\"Bug?\" cried my wife. \"A bug come out of this table? And what did you\r\ndo with it?\"\r\n\r\n\"Clapped it under a tumbler.\"\r\n\r\n\"Biddy! Biddy!\" cried my wife, going to the door. \"Did you see a\r\ntumbler here on this table when you swept the room?\"\r\n\r\n\"Sure I did, marm, and 'bomnable bug under it.\"\r\n\r\n\"And what did you do with it?\" demanded I.\r\n\r\n\"Put the bug in the fire, sir, and rinsed out the tumbler ever so many\r\ntimes, marm.\"\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 10"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJJJM0754W6H0XDN0RWYE","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1C1N72JCD0ZBGTBX0EX","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AK6M128BWM687CW2TG7VB","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG8AK77V0CXZYNVMXQ3YV9ND","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:47:56.539Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:03.932Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}