The latter part of this diary was very old, yellow, and much torn, from apparently repeated readings: I had some difficulty in decyphering it. Its perusal had deeply interested me, so I folded it up, and rose upon my feet. I saw my little time-piece indicated the hour of one, and a moment after there came a violent knocking at the door, and then Morton’s stentorian voice was fully audible.
“Clarence, I say Clarence, are you within? if you are, for God’s sake answer; there’s some infernal thing in my room which has kept me from sleeping for the last hour. I don’t know what it is, and I can’t find out, for my light’s gone out; come here and bring a candle for pity’s sake.”
I seized my expiring candle and rushed into his apartment, where stood in the middle of the floor my friend, apparently in a state of great bewilderment; the chairs were thrown about in confusion, and clothes were lying here and there; the curtains of the bed half pulled down.
“What is it, Morton? what’s the matter?” I cried, bringing the luminary to bear upon the chaos.
“What’s the matter? why that’s just what I want to know myself; for the last hour I have heard nothing but chairs upset, the hangings scratched at, and my own hair and face most delightfully scratched. When I stretched out my hands, seeking to discover the cause of the mischief, I grasped empty air; I could see nothing, all was darkness: and thus have I been bored; now take your candle and try and find out what it is.”
I began a tour of the apartment, but saw nothing, except luggage piled on luggage, dressing cases, brushes, combs, &c., &c.; when going around the bed, I heard a sardonic laugh, and looking up, saw perched on the tester, a monkey; the property of a fellow boarder, who, by some means, had contrived to secrete himself in my friend’s room, and consequently annoy him by his tricks. Taking the mischievous animal by his fore legs I put him out the room, much to Morton’s relief, who exclaimed,
“Is that the thing? well, it has been troubling me enough, the plague; I thought satan himself was here. Thank you, Clarence, my dear fellow; what time is it?”
I told him, then went to bed.
The next day I waited on Signor Ferra, the attorney; he lived in a dark, dirty street, in an old tumble-down house. Upon opening Carrara’s will, I found, to my utter amazement, that with the exception of the house in which he lived, and the gallery of paintings, he had made me heir to his considerable property in Rome and the environs, together with the beautiful portrait of Genevra. My kindness to the solitary old artist, had not been ill repaid; so impossible it is for us in this strange existence, to foresee the result of even the slightest action; and, which only more fully demonstrated to me the propriety of always being polite.