Down I went in the dark—very softly, too, lest I should alarm the landlady and the other lodgers; but, though the odour was strong, I went right to the bottom, and stood upon the door-mat without finding my enemies.
I stood and thought for a few minutes, and then began slowly to ascend, feeling carefully all over every step as I went up to my bed-room, where I arrived, without ever my hand coming in contact with that which I sought.
"I'll go to bed and leave them!" I ejaculated, and I turned upon my heel; but, at that moment, the pungent burning odour came up stronger than ever, and I was compelled to descend, to find that the demon twins had been lying in ambush half-way down, so that I trod upon them, tripped, in my terror my foot glided, over them, and I fell with a crash into the umbrella stand, which I upset with a hideous noise upon the oilcloth—not so loud, though, but that I could hear the little black imps take three or four grasshopper leaps along the passage, ending by sticking the pointed beak into the street door.
Before I could gather myself up, I heard doors opening upstairs, and screaming from the girls below who slept in the kitchen; and the next minute old Major O'Brien's voice came roaring down—
"An' if ye shtir a shtep I'll blow out yer brains!"
Of course I had to explain; and I had the horrible knowledge that they gave me the credit of being intoxicated—the Major saying he would not stop in a house where people went prowling about at all hours, ending by himself, at the landlady's request, examining the door to see if it was latched securely, and then seeing me safely to my room.
"An' if I did me duty, sor, I should lock you in," he said by way of good night. "And now get into bed, sor, and at once; and—here are your snuffers!"
I could fill volumes with the tortures inflicted upon me by those haunted snuffers, for they clung to me, and in spite of every effort never left me free. It was in vain that I came home early and shifted them into the Major's candlestick: they only came back. I threw them out of the bedroom window once, and they were found by the maid in the area. I threw them out again, and they were picked up by the policeman, and they made him bring them back. Then I tried it at midday; but an old woman brought them in, and made a row because they went through her parasol, so that I had to pay ten shillings, besides being looked upon by my landlady as a lunatic.
I thrust them into the fire one night, and held them there with the tongs, lest they should leap out; but they would not burn, and my landlady, finding them in the ashes, had them japanned, and they were in their old place next day. I had no better luck when I thrust them—buried them—deep in a scuttle of ashes; they only turned up out of the dusthole when Mary sifted the cinders.
They always came off black on to my hands when they did not anoint my fingers with soft tallow. If they fell out of the candlestick, it was always on to oilcloth or paint, where they could make a noise jumping about like a grasshopper, till they ended by standing upon the sharp beak, with the spectacle-like holes in the air. If I went up to dress, they would shoot into my collar-box, or amongst my clean shirts, smutting them all over. If I tried to kill a wasp with them upon an autumn evening, when the insect crept out of a plum at dessert, the wretches only snipped him in two, as if rejoicing at the inflicted torture. In short, they have worn me out—those snuffers; and, if it was not from fear, I should take and drop them from the parapet of a bridge.