CHAPTER THE TENTH.

THERE is a bolt upon the door. Let it do
its office. I'm at home to nobody—nor must
anybody read this chapter but those who are
prepared to go into a domestic matter of great
interest, but of an essentially private nature.

I cannot, and will not stand another night of
sleeping in my clothes. It is not to be endured.
What must l do then? The sheets are not a
bit less damp than they were the first night.
There remains but one course open to me: I
must air my bedding. Won't remonstrate, the
thing must be done.

First of all a roaring fire in the china stove.
What a fire! What a stove! How it roars
and cracks with metallic snappings in the
chimney! I wish it may not burst suddenly,
and fall into the midst of the room a mass of
heated china, of fiery fuel, and red-hot iron
chimney. That china stove is so large and gets
so hot, that very soon I feel as if the marrow in
my bones was dried up and turned to powder.
My tongue rattles against the roof of my mouth.
Asphyxia will ensue unless something is done to
air the room. The window must be opened.
Impossible, it won't stir: it is a French window,
opening—or rather not opening—down the
middle. A plague upon the French window!
I don't believe it's ever been opened in its life.
I am getting angry: tug, pull, rattle, shake—
no use. Knee against lower part of windowframe:
now tug, pull, rattle, shake, again—no
result whatever. Hold top of window with left
hand and repeat the shaking process with right
—worse and worse! And all this exertion in a
room with no air in it, only stove smoke and
mephitic vapour! I shall suffocate—I shall go
mad—I shall have to break a pane of glass!
One more mighty pull, with all my force and all
my weight thrown into a last despairing effort:
window opens suddenly without the slightest
show of resistance, and I am flung upon my
back contused and stunned. Never mind, the
window is opened. Now for the grand event of
the day—now for an assault upon the bedding.

Yes, a mattress is a difficult thing to manage
all alone when you've got it off the bed, and
when the room is small, and when there is a
great deal of large furniture about, and when a
stove, which singes everything that touches it,
fills up two-thirds of the apartment. It is at
such a time, I repeat, that a gentleman unaccustomed
to mattresses will find that they are
afflicted with a weakness which renders them
ever ready to droop upon his head as he carries
them in his arms, leaving more flue upon his
hair than he is usually in the habit of wearing.
He will also find that they are apt, when placed
before the fire, to double up in unexpected
places, and to lean over heavily when propped
against chairs, while the chairs themselves, on a
highly polished oak floor, will not uncommonly
slide back from the pressure of the mattress, and
allow it to sink with aggravating languor to the
ground.

It is much easier to deal with the blankets
and sheets; for, once get the mattress to stand
up upon its edge, and you can lay the other
articles which require airing over it, and range
them in a semicircle round the fire. Yes, this
is much easier, and now I have succeeded in
surrounding the china stove with a perfect
amphitheatre of bedding. " Capital," I say to
myself, " I shall get between the sheets to-night,
at any rate—I shall——What's that? Well,
it's a tap at the door.

"Who's there?" I howl.

"A gentleman," says the voice of my landlord,
"wishes to see the room. As I am going to
leave it in two days, will I allow him to enter."

What can I do but unbolt the door and admit
them.

The man with the lounging-cap and the dressing-
gown, and the evil smile, comes in, accompanied
by a grave and short gentleman, who will
fit the bed nicely—that man is not more than an
umbrella and a half long, I know. "Pouf!"
says the short gentleman, on entering the apartment,
and I dare say it does strike hot, coming
out of the air . "Pouf!" says the man with the
lounging-cap and the evil eye. After one glance
at the condition of the room, he never takes that
eye off me, and never ceases to smile; but it is
the tight smile with closed lips that indicates
malice. The man who smiles like that will never
forgive the implied dampness of his linen.

The conduct of the short gentleman is delicate
in the extreme. He looks at the clock on
the chimney-piece, at the floor, out of window,
makes remarks on the prospect—does everything,
in short, but look at the bedding before the
stove. Bless him for it. As he leaves the room
he waves his hand towards the table which is
covered with manuscript, and says that he fears
he has "deranged me." Blessings upon the
head of that short Frenchman. " It is such delicacy
as this," I said to myself, one hour afterwards
—it took me an hour to recover—" it is
such delicacy as this which has won for the
French nation that reputation for a refined
politeness which they deserve so well. What
shall we say of such politeness. It warms the
heart of him towards whom it is exercised with
admiration, and fills him with a glow of gratitude.
Nay, at this moment, while I think and
write of it, it has made my heart feel lighter and
more loving to all the world.

Alas, that this courtesy (I am obliged by truth
to own it) is often of little value as showing a
good heart. Alas, that one of the best and most
generous men I know (it is my friend Growler
of whom I am speaking) is at the same time so
disagreeable and offensive in his manners that it
is a pain to be in the room with him.

I did not make all these reflections, as I have
said, till long after the short gentleman and the
man with the lounging-cap had left the apart-
ment. After bolting the door upon them, I fell
down upon the mattress (which had taken the
opportunity of its owner's entrance to sink upon
the floor and do obeisance befoe him)—I fell, I
say, upon the mattress, and remained speechless,
with my mind a blank for thirty-five minutes by
my aunt Jones's repeater.