Doubtless many an anxious housekeeper is hurrying rapidly through the pages of this book to discover whether or no Tom Jones’ piece of entomological information was correct; but I shall not enlighten them on the point, for this is a work on legal subjects, and cannot be taken up with recounting investigations concerning the habits of such small things as insects. Saith not the ancient maxim: “De minimis non curat lex”?
We had, however, other things to think about ere morning’s light again illuminated the eastern sky. Scarcely had we settled ourselves for the night when my wife started up, exclaiming:
“Hear the loud alarum bells! What a tale of terror their turbulency tells! In the startled ear of night how they scream out their affright in a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire—in a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire! What a tale their terror tells of despair! How they clang, and clash, and roar!”
“Ha! and well for us that their twanging and their clanging have aroused us; for see! the house opposite is all wrapped in flames, and the wind is driving right toward us!”
Ah! then throughout our house there was hurrying to and fro, and gathering tears, and tremblings of distress, and cheeks all pale, which, but ten minutes past, pressed the soft pillows with their loveliness; and there were sudden snatchings of such as by chance lay within reach, and leaving things which ne’er might be regained; and there was rushing in hot haste—the men, the chattering women, and the pattering child, went pouring forward with impetuous speed, and swiftly showed in the back yard in robes de nuit.
I jumped into my pantaloons; fortunately, they were not like those of Monseigneur d’Artois, nor was I as particular as his highness; four tall lackeys had to hold him up in the air every morning, that he might fall into his breeches without vestige of wrinkle, and from them the same four, in the same way but with more effort, had to deliver him at night. We found shelter in the hospitable mansion of old Mrs. Jones. At the expense of our friends, we thatched ourselves anew with the “dead fleeces of sheep, the bark of vegetables, the entrails of worms, the hides of oxen or seals, the felt of furred beasts, and walked down stairs moving rag screens, over-heaped with shreds and tatters raked from the charnel-house of nature” to partake of the morning meal.
At breakfast, Mrs. Lawyer remarked, in anything but lugubrious tones:
“Well, Mr. Jones, we have got rid of those rooms without much trouble.”
Tom shook his head; so my wife asked:
“Why do you do that?”