{"id":"01KG8AM8ER5EQ4T69D8HRPCE0R","cid":"bafkreieafa5r4iaro3etx5f2tx4y2f4vy6vgh7nwthbz66vjqavb6fc2re","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":9832,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:26.985Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 18","source_file":"01KG89J1FFTGRE9J93Z3K29NGY","start_line":9750,"text":"‘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\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\nwe drop down the queer hole yonder?’\r\n\r\n‘I know where they go to; I’ve been there almost as many times as the\r\ncat.’\r\n\r\n‘What devil, wife, prompted you to crawl into the ash-hole! Don’t you\r\nknow that St. Dunstan’s devil emerged from the ash-hole? You will get\r\nyour death one of these days, exploring all about as you do. But,\r\nsupposing there be a secret closet, what then?’\r\n\r\n‘What then? Why, what should be in a secret closet but----’\r\n\r\n‘Dry bones, wife,’ broke in I with a puff, while the sociable old\r\nchimney broke in with another.\r\n\r\n‘There again! Oh, how this wretched old chimney smokes,’ wiping her eyes\r\nwith her handkerchief. ‘I’ve no doubt the reason it smokes so is,\r\nbecause that secret closet interferes with the flue. Do see, too, how\r\nthe jambs here keep settling; and it’s down hill all the way from the\r\ndoor to this hearth. This horrid old chimney will fall on our heads yet;\r\ndepend upon it, old man.’\r\n\r\n‘Yes, wife, I do depend on it; yes, indeed, I place every dependence on\r\nmy chimney. As for its settling, I like it. I, too, am settling, you\r\nknow, in my gait. I and my chimney are settling together, and shall keep\r\nsettling, too, till, as in a great feather-bed, we shall both have\r\nsettled away clean out of sight. But this secret oven; I mean, secret\r\ncloset of yours, wife; where exactly do you suppose that secret closet\r\nis?’\r\n\r\n‘That is for Mr. Scribe to say.’\r\n\r\n‘But suppose he cannot say exactly; what then?’\r\n\r\n‘Why, then, he can prove, I am sure, that it must be somewhere or other\r\nin this horrid old chimney.’\r\n\r\n‘And if he can’t prove that; what then?’\r\n\r\n‘Why then, old man,’ with a stately air, ‘I shall say little more about\r\nit.’\r\n\r\n‘Agreed, wife,’ returned I, knocking my pipe-bowl against the jamb; ‘and\r\nnow, to-morrow, I will a third time send for Mr. Scribe. Wife, the\r\nsciatica takes me; be so good as to put this pipe on the mantel.’\r\n\r\n‘If you get the step-ladder for me, I will. This shocking old chimney,\r\nthis abominable old-fashioned old chimney’s mantels are so high, I can’t\r\nreach them.’\r\n\r\nNo opportunity, however trivial, was overlooked for a subordinate fling\r\nat the pile.\r\n\r\nHere, by way of introduction, it should be mentioned, that besides the\r\nfireplaces all round it, the chimney was, in the most haphazard way,\r\nexcavated on each floor for certain curious out-of-the-way cupboards and\r\nclosets, of all sorts and sizes, clinging here and there, like nests in\r\nthe crotches of some old oak. On the second floor these closets were by\r\nfar the most irregular and numerous. And yet this should hardly have\r\nbeen so, since the theory of the chimney was, that it pyramidically\r\ndiminished as it ascended. The abridgment of its square on the roof was\r\nobvious enough; and it was supposed that the reduction must be\r\nmethodically graduated from bottom to top.\r\n\r\n‘Mr. Scribe,’ said I, when, the next day, with an eager aspect, that\r\nindividual again came, ‘my object in sending for you this morning is,\r\nnot to arrange for the demolition of my chimney, nor to have any\r\nparticular conversation about it, but simply to allow you every\r\nreasonable facility for verifying, if you can, the conjecture\r\ncommunicated in your note.’\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 18"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJWC2XZP9WWPK8DAFVAR9","peer_type":"segment","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1FFTGRE9J93Z3K29NGY","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AM7T72J85TDN9XGV3VDDM","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG8AM8EP5C8XXX9AH9TQ83Q4","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:31.192Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:44.130Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}