the boots in them, hanging over the bedside something after the
manner of a drunken marauder, but nothing more. Neither is there
anybody reposing under the shadow of my boot-tree upon the floor. All
is peace there, and at sixes and sevens as I left it upon
retiring--as I had hoped--to rest.

Once more I stretch my chilled and tired limbs upon the couch; sweet
sleep once more begins to woo my eyelids, when "Henry, Henry!" again
dissolves the dim and half-formed dream.

"Are you _certain_, Henry, that you looked in the shower-bath? I am
almost sure that I heard somebody pulling the string."

No grounds, indeed, are too insufficient, no supposition too
incompatible with reason, for Mrs. B. to build her alarms upon.
Sometimes, although we lodge upon the second story, she imagines that
the window is being attempted; sometimes, although the register may
be down, she is confident that the chimney is being used as the means
of ingress.

Once, when we happened to be in London--where she feels, however, a
good deal safer than in the country--we had a real alarm, and Mrs.
B., since I was suffering from a quinsy, contracted mainly by my
being sent about the house o' nights in the usual scanty drapery, had
to be sworn in as her own special constable.

"Henry, Henry!" she whispered upon this occasion, "there's a
dreadful cat in the room."

"Pooh, pooh!" I gasped; "it's only in the street; I've heard the
wretches. Perhaps they are on the tiles."

"No, Henry. There, I don't want you to talk, since it makes you
cough; only listen to me. What am I to do, Henry? I'll stake my
existence that there's a---- Ugh, what's that?"

And, indeed, some heavy body did there and then jump upon our bed,
and off again at my wife's interjection, with extreme agility. I
thought Mrs. B. would have had a fit, but she didn't. She told me,
dear soul, upon no account to venture into the cold with my bad
throat. She would turn out the beast herself, single-handed. We
arranged that she was to take hold of my fingers, and retain them,
until she reached the fireplace, where she would find a shovel or
other offensive weapon fit for the occasion. During the progress of
this expedition, however, so terrible a caterwauling broke forth, as
it seemed, from the immediate neighbourhood of the fender, that my
disconcerted helpmate made a most precipitate retreat. She managed
after this mishap to procure a light, and by a circuitous route,
constructed of ta