There is some natur there, but here it's all cussed rooks
and chimbly swallers, and heavy men and fat women, and
lazy helps, and Sunday every day in the week.' So I fills
my cigar-case and outs into the passage.

"But here was a fix! One of the doors opened into the
great staircase, and which was it? 'Ay,' sais I, 'which
is it, do you know?' 'Upon my soul, I don't know,' sais
I; 'but try, it's no use to be caged up here like a
painter, and out I will, that's a fact.'

"So I stops and studies, 'that's it,' sais I, and I opens
a door: it was a bedroom--it was the likely chambermaid's.

"'Softly, Sir,' sais she, a puttin' of her finger on her
lip, 'don't make no noise; Missus will hear you.'

"'Yes,' sais I, 'I won't make no noise;' and I outs and
shuts the door too arter me gently.

"'What next?' sais I; 'why you fool, you,' sais I, 'why
didn't you ax the sarvant maid, which door it was?' 'Why
I was so conflastrigated,' sais I, 'I didn't think of
it. Try that door,' well I opened another, it belonged
to one o' the horrid hansum stranger galls that dined at
table yesterday. When she seed me, she gave a scream,
popt her head onder the clothes, like a terrapin, and
vanished--well I vanished too.

"'Ain't this too bad?' sais I; 'I wish I could open a