Christmas Penny Readings Part 28

"Yes," was the whispered response.

Mr Hemson turned on his dark lanthorn, almost with one movement turned key and handle, threw open the door, and as every man rushed in, the light was flashed all over the room, but no one was visible. There stood the old-fas.h.i.+oned dining-room chairs formally against the walls, the pictures looked down grimly, the wine cooler beneath the sideboard yawned gloomily and black, but nothing more could be seen; not even a chair was out of place, though every eye was now directed to a large closet in one corner.

"Come along, gentlemen," said Mr Hemson, and he swung the door of the empty closet open.

"But the table cover," whispered my friend, pointing to the large dust-covered cloth, whose corners touched the floor.

To whisk off the great pall-like cloth from the long dining-table was but the work of an instant, and then the light was flashed beneath the table; but nothing save a cloud of penetrating dust rewarded the searchers, who then stood, pale and puzzled, looking at one another, till Mr Hemson proposed an adjournment to the little room, where, after carefully locking the dining-room door, they retook their places, every man feeling uncomfortable and put out.

But attention was soon drawn by my friend to the arrangement agreed upon, when pencils were eagerly seized, and for a quarter of an hour not a word was spoken, when the last man laid down his pencil.

"Has every man signed his name?" asked my friend.

This caused another trifling delay, for no man had placed his name at the bottom of his ma.n.u.script; but this being done, the first man's paper was read over. It was, of course, very brief, but to the effect that, while standing in the hall, he had heard the sound as of a man talking to himself in a wild, agitated manner; that it seemed that a book was thrown hastily down upon the table by some one, who then hurriedly pushed his chair back, so that it sc.r.a.ped along the floor, while at the same time the table gave way and cracked audibly. Then followed the hurried pacing of some one up and down the room, till the door was thrown open and all became silent.

"Precisely what I have stated," exclaimed Mr Hemson.

"Mine is almost word for word the same," cried my friend; while, with trifling exceptions, the narratives of the other watchers tallied.

Rather pale and uncomfortable, the party now eat talking in whispers, starting at every loud gust of wind or loud pat of snow upon the window, while the rattling of cas.e.m.e.nt or door was enough to send a s.h.i.+ver through the stoutest man present. But as the night wore on and nothing more alarming was heard, first one and then another dropped off to sleep, though the majority sat watching till the cold grey light of the winter's morning dawned; and then, after another glance at the dining-room, now looking more weird than ever as seen by the light streaming through the round, eye-like holes in the window shutters, the party gladly left the house, and doubtless made the best of their way to bed.

Now, I make no defence of this story, for I have placed it upon paper in much the same form that it was told to me. What the noise was that the convivial watchers heard I cannot say, but though I consider my informant worthy of credence, and though it was singular that the impression made on all was the same, yet I cannot help thinking that the best thing to imbibe while sitting up o' night is tea.

CHAPTER TWENTY SIX.

CAUGHT IN HIS OWN TRAP.

Fancy being almost born a DD, like unto Mr Dagon Dodd, a gentleman who resided, when in what he called his prime, at Number Nine, Inkermann Villas, Balaclava-road, Russiaville--who resided there for the simple reason that he paid his rent and rates with the same punctuality that he did his Income Tax, or it is within the range of probability that Number Nine would soon have possessed another tenant.

Now, although Mr Dagon Dodd had a great right to the letters DD, since they formed his initials; yet he was in no wise related to a celebrated doctor of the same name. Mr Dodd was a bachelor--rather a bald bachelor, with a great deal of very smooth white crown, surrounded by a neat little stubbly fence of very black bristly hair. You never caught Mr DD with his hair brushed in greasy streaks across his head, for the simple reason that his was hair that would not brush, nor yet comb; it grew in a particular way, and stuck to that way most obstinately, besides which what hair existed was so much like a brush itself, that when the well-known toilet appendage came into contact with Mr DD's head there was such violent antagonism that electricity was evolved, and my only wonder is that Mr DD had not brought the powerful current into use in some way.

Mr Dodd was in person slightly stout, slightly asthmatical, and decidedly short; and though a single person, report said that it was not the fault of the gentleman, for he had once proposed to a lady and been rejected. At all events, Mr Dodd was a single gentleman in the popular acceptation of the term, but decidedly not so in appearance, for in addition to his person, which might have been called after the contents of certain brewers' barrels, "Double Stout," he wore double-breasted coats and waistcoats, double-soled shoes, with large black ferret strings, tied in bows, even in snowy weather, while his double chin and double show of importance made the little gentleman do very great credit to Number Nine, Inkermann Villas.

But though a bachelor, Mr Dodd was wedded--wedded to science--science as applied to domestic economy--social science, and he experimentalised largely, greatly to the disgust of his staff of servants--cook, housemaid, and b.u.t.tons,--who stigmatised him as _messy_. For the fact is, Mr Dodd delighted in patents, and was in himself a little fortune to those men who are for ever trying to perfect that steam-engine which shall draw corks. Though far from sneering at improvements, what a blessing it would be if some ingenious mortal would invent a patent noiseless dressing-machine--a dressing-machine for babies. Oh, _bliss_!

bliss!! bliss!!! However such an invention could not be expected from a single gentleman, who had, though, patent locks on all his doors; a patent rotary knife-cleaner polished the knives; a patent boot-cleaner the boots; a patent roasting-jack nearly drove the cook mad, as it basted the meat itself, and all the while splashed the clean hearth and wasted the perquisites. Then there was a patent potato-peeler, a patent potato-masher--egg-beater--carpet-sweeper--cinder-sifter--and prize Kitchener. Patent something with an unp.r.o.nounceable name covered the hall; patent candles burned in patent lamps; patent enamel saucepans cooked the viands; while Mr Dodd almost fed himself by means of a little chewing thing, which turned with a handle, for teeth and digestion were failing, and in spite of a patent base artificial teeth will prove more ornamental than useful. There was a patent ventilator for regulating the temperature of every room--instruments that were remarkable for their awkward propensities, for, like the greater part of the machinery in Mr Dodd's establishment, these ventilators always made a point of doing the very opposite to what was required of them. For instance, they always stuck and remained open in winter, to give entrance to all the tooth-chattering winds; and as obstinately remained closed when the summer heats prevailed, and a little fresh air would have been a blessing. The patent, or rather to be made patent, coal-scuttle of Mr Dodd's own designing was certainly a n.o.ble invention, only that, like Artemus Ward's first novel, it was far from "perf.e.c.k," for in consequence of working with a crank the article was cranky, and always put on either too much or too little of the heat-affording mineral, while it had been known to scatter a knubbly shower all over the hearthrug.

But scarcely anything had taken up more of Mr Dodd's attention, than the springs which opened and closed his doors. He very reasonably said that such a trivial matter might easily be worked by machinery sympathising with the approaching feet; but in spite of all his care and trouble, the springs beneath the boards of the floor would not be regulated to the required strength, they would go either too stiffly or too easily. Now this was very often most troublesome, as exemplified upon one occasion, when Mr Dodd was bowing out a lady visitor, taking leave with her husband. The owner of the inventions stood too long upon the spring board, and just in the midst of one of his most profound bows, clap-to came the door, shooting Mr Dodd forward, as if out of a Roman catapult, and making him b.u.t.t his male friend, ram fas.h.i.+on, right in the region known to us in school days as "the wind," when the effects were most disastrous: the gentleman's watch-gla.s.s was broken, and the visitor doubled up in the large umbrella-stand, with his internal inflatable organs in a state of vacuum, while by the recoil, Mr Dodd came down in a sitting posture upon the door mat, where he remained staring at his collapsed friend until he thought better of it, and helped him to rise.

He was often on the very point of becoming a martyr to science was Mr Dodd, and never nearer than upon one dismal, dreary, snowy, scrawmy morning, one of those cheerful times when people are wont to feel put out with everything and everybody--a sort of three-cornered time--a Boxing-day in fact, when, after a little extra jollity on the previous night, there was a strong suspicion of headache and disordered liver.

Mr Dodd began the day all askew, by getting out of bed the wrong way, and then felt as if all the skin was off his temper which as naturally became chafed, as that people who have sore places, manage to hit them in preference to other parts of their body however sound. Everything went wrong with Mr Dodd upon that morning. His shaving water was nearly cold, and in spite of the patent guard razor, Mr Dodd cut himself severely; then there was hard water in place of soft, in the ewer, and his face was chapped with the previous day's cutting wind; he felt as if he had taken cold, for the ventilator had not closed when Mr Dodd went to bed, even when he stood upon a chair and hammered it with a poker; while, worse than all, an irritating cough tickled and tormented him, tried as it was by the smoke which ascended the staircase and penetrated his bedroom.

Descending at last through the clouds, like an angry Jove, Mr Dodd encountered Mary, housemaid, with an angry--"Where does all this smoke come from?"

"Oh, it's all that nasty jester, sir, as won't keep up. It's only propped up now by two little deary pieces of firewood, a waiting to be burnt through and let it down again."

Mary's angry master seemed to think the "nasty jester" was no joker; but a little examination soon enabled him to put the register right, and dispense with the "two little deary pieces of firewood;" but directly after Mr Dodd summoned the maiden to the dining-room, by apparently trying to play a tune upon some instrument, whose ivory mouthpiece projected from the wall.

"No stove fire alight in the hall this morning, Mary?" said Mr Dodd, as his attendant brought, in some very badly made dry toast.

"Won't burn a bit, sir," said Mary. "It's wuss than this, and smokes awful."

"Did you turn the little k.n.o.b by the pipe?"

"No, sir, I didn't, sir."

"Tutt--tutt--tutt," exclaimed Mr Dodd impatiently, as he went to the foot of the well staircase, opened the stove damper, and then stooped down to open the door and see whether a spark yet remained.

It was well for Mr Dodd that he stooped as he did, for with a fearful crash down came a coal-scuttle from the second floor, striking from side to side of the well staircase, and bestowing upon the stooping gentleman's bald head a regular douche of knubbly coals, mingled with dust, while the copper scuttle itself fell upon the stove, and knocked off the pineapple k.n.o.b which formed its apex.

"Lawk-a-mercy, sir, what a good job as it wasn't the scuttle," exclaimed Mary, as her master shook himself free from the cheerful coal, and gazed up at the skylight at the top of the staircase, to see whence came the fearful shower, but only to find his eyes resting upon the fat, round, inanimate countenance of the page staring over the bannisters, perfectly aghast at the mischief.

The explanation Mr Dodd sought was most simple. Mr Dodd had not yet fitted his house with a hydraulic lift, after the fas.h.i.+on of those used in our Brobdignagian hotels, but had contented himself with a crane and winch for drawing up coals and other loads. This machine, too, was a failure from the ignorance and apathy of the page, who was a regular grit in Mr Dodd's cog-wheels, and who this very morning, from some mismanagement, had nearly offered up his master as a sacrifice upon the altar of science.

Under these untoward circ.u.mstances Mr Dodd went and acted in the most sensible of ways, that is to say, he went and washed himself; but it is not surprising that he should afterwards feel more gritty than ever when he sat down to partake of his matutinal coffee, made in a patent pot with an impossible name. He boiled his eggs, too, himself, by means of a small tin affair--patent, of course--in which a certain quant.i.ty of spirit of wine was burned, and when extinct the eggs were done.

Mr Dodd finished his breakfast in a very excitable and vicious manner.

He felt sore, mentally and bodily sore, for his inventions and patents were his hobby, and they either would not work right, or people would not take the trouble to comprehend them. He suffered terribly; but for all that he persevered, and, being a bachelor, he did as he liked. And, being a bachelor, what wonder that he should have a sewing-machine, and amuse himself with his Wheeler and Lathe in st.i.tching round the half-dozen new table-cloths? But the sewing-machine was useless for b.u.t.tons, so Mr Dodd set to, to invent one that should meet that want, and so be a blessing for every single man. A week pa.s.sed--two weeks-- three weeks; and then, after no end of brain work and modelling for the new machine, to be called the patent b.u.t.ton-fixer, invented by Mr Dagon Dodd, that gentleman didn't do it, and gave up, if not in despair, at all events in despair's first cousin.

But Boxing-day seemed to have set in badly; while Mr Dodd felt ill-disposed to suffer the stings and arrows. According to the old saying, "it never rains but it pours"--in this case coals--and while the hero of these troubles was sternly gazing upon his fire, with a foot planted against each bright cheek of the stove, Mary came to announce the arrival of a tradesman, now in attendance to take certain orders.

Mr Dodd tried to place himself in a less American position, but found that he was a fixture. It was a wet, slushy morning, and Mr D had determined to try the new patent compo-ment-elastical-everlasting-soled boots--a new patent, and one which should have been devoted to the practice of walking upon ceilings, for they were now tightly fixed to the sides of the fireplace, and Mr Dodd in them, to his unutterable discomfort and annoyance. At the first he imagined that it must be owing to the tar he burned upon his fire--a c.o.ke fire, whose combustion was aided by the drips from a small vessel behind the register, containing tar; but Mr D soon found that the material of his new impervious boot-soles was alone to blame; and consequently while the man waited he unlaced and set himself at liberty, a culmination at which he did not arrive without slipping off his chair once, and coming into sharp contact with the fender.

Mr Dodd determined in future to stick to his shoes, for it was evident that his boots meant to stick to something else, and they did too so tightly that they had to be flayed off with the carving-knife, and not easily either, for sometimes the knife became a fixture, and at others the sole became again attached, while the heel was set at liberty, and _vice versa_. So Mr Dodd felt ill-tempered.

"Now, Mr Pouter," said Mr Dodd at last to the tradesman, who had been for some time standing within the door, and smelling very strongly of glue; "now, Mr Pouter, I want the door-springs eased a little, and I want this fixed."

"Certainly, sir," said Mr Pouter, smiling at the recollection of his old friends the spring-doors, which had been quite a little fortune to him, and bade fair to remain so, seeing that they required his ministering hands about once a week. _We_ already know how that they would occasionally bang too hard, but they would also bang too softly; when the application of a hand was necessary to make them close, and they might just as well have been common doors. So Mr Pouter smiled.

"What are you laughing at, sir?" exclaimed Mr Dodd, angrily. "I tell you what it is, sir," he continued, rubbing his sore head, for he could not touch his sore temper, "I'll tell you what it is, if you can--not attend to my orders without grinning like a gorilla, I'll--I'll--I'll-- employ some one else. Such impudence!"

This was an awful threat for Mr Pouter. It was like saying, "I'll take fifty pounds away from you;" and therefore Mr Pouter, who hated losing a customer, and was much given to cuddling his jobs--that is to say, holding one very tightly till another came in--Mr Pouter looked exceedingly dove-like and mild, ceased smiling, and said appealingly--

"Plee, sir, I didn't laugh."

"Hold your tongue, sir," exclaimed Mr Dodd, "I say you did laugh."

"But plee, sir, I really didn't, sir, and I didn't mean nothin' at all, sir," expostulated Mr Pouter, in a most ill-used tone.

"You laughed at me very rudely, sir," said Mr Dodd, with dignity, "and I now beg that the subject may be dropped. Have you brought your tools?"

"Yes, sir; yes, sir!" exclaimed Mr Pouter, glad enough to have the subject changed, and now looking as solemn and stiff in his features as if his skin were composed of his own shavings.

"Then turn up that carpet, remove the loose boards, and ease the door-spring--not too much, mind; but, there, let that girl pa.s.s with the tray."

"That girl" was Mr Dodd's housemaid, Mary, who gave her head a dignified toss; but her step was arrested by the sound of a heavy body falling, followed by an exclamation of pain.

"Dear me, sir--very sorry, sir--wouldn't have had it happen on any account," said Mr Pouter, stooping to pick up the mallet he had dropped upon Mr Dodd's particular corn.