"No. I had a ham sent home, and told her to have a slice of that broiled for breakfast."
"I don't know what to make of it. Every now and then that same smell comes up through the register—particularly in the morning. I'll bet a sixpence there's some old fish tub in the cellar of which she's made kindling."
"That may be it," said I.
And, for want of a better reason, we agreed, for the time being, upon that hypothesis.
At the end of another four days, word came up that our best sperm oil, for which we paid a dollar and forty cents a gallon, was out again.
"Impossible!" I ejaculated.
"But it is mum," said Hannah. "There's not a scrimption left—not so much as the full of a thimble."
"You must be mistaken. A gallon of oil has never been burned in this house in four days."
"We burned the other gallon in four days," said Hannah, with provoking coolness. "The evenings are very long, and we have a great many lights. There's the parlor light, and the passage light, and the—"
"It's no use for you to talk, Hannah," I replied, interrupting her. "No use in the world. A gallon of oil in four days has never gone by fair means in this house. So don't try to make me believe it—for I won't. I'm too old a housekeeper for that."