the fumes of the havana! Pshaw! sir, I am not the only man who lets his
first thoughts upon cold steel end, like this chapter, in--Pff--pff--
pff!




CHAPTER IV.


Everything in this world is of use, even a black thing crawling over the
nape of one's neck! Grim unknown, I shall make of thee--a simile!

I think, ma'am, you will allow that if an incident such as I have
described had befallen yourself, and you had a proper and lady-like
horror of earwigs (however motherly and fond of their offspring), and
also of early hornets,--and indeed of all unknown things of the insect
tribe with black heads and two great horns, or feelers, or forceps, just
by your ear,--I think, ma'am, you will allow that you would find it
difficult to settle back to your former placidity of mood and innocent
stitch-work. You would feel a something that grated on your nerves and
cr'd-cr'd "all over you like," as the children say. And the worst is,
that you would be ashamed to say it. You would feel obliged to look
pleased and join in the conversation, and not fidget too much, nor
always be shaking your flounces and looking into a dark corner of your
apron. Thus it is with many other things in life besides black insects.
One has a secret care, an abstraction, a something between the memory
and the feeling, of a dark crawling cr which one has never dared to
analyze. So I sat by my another, trying to smile and talk as in the old
time, but longing to move about, and look around, and escape to my own