The boarding-house was wrapt in tenebrous gloom, faintly tinted with an odor of kerosene.
Suddenly there arose on the air a yell, followed by wild objurgations and furious anathemas.
Then there was a clanking and rattling, as of an over-turned picket-fence, and another yell with more anathemas. The fatted boarders listened, and, ghostly clad, tip-toed along to Buffum’s room,—he of Buffum & Bird, second-hand furniture dealers. As they stood there, there was a whiz, a grinding, a rattling and a bang, and more yells. They consulted, and knocked on the door.
“Come in.”
“Open it.”
“I can’t.”
Convinced that Buffum was in his last agony, they knocked in the door with a bedpost.
The sight was ghastly. Clasped between two sturdy, though slender, frames of walnut, Buffum, pale as a ghost, was six feet up in the air. He couldn’t move. He was caught like a bear in a log-trap.
“What on earth is it?” they said.
“Bedstead—combination. New patent I was tellin’ you about,” gasped Buffum.