'Did you say number twenty-seven, second floor?' inquired Mrs Oliver, addressing the lady at the bar, as she took a chamber candlestick from her hand and proceeded to mount the stairs.
'Twenty-seven, second floor,' responded the landlady with an affirmative nod and a gracious smile.
'Twenty-seven, second floor,' repeated my uncle as he followed in the wake of his more active and enterprising helpmate, who, threading her way up the spiral staircase and along a labyrinth of corridors and passages, had already arrived at the dormitory in question. Mr and Mrs Oliver were soon in bed; and there we will leave them, whilst we look in at number twenty-nine on the same floor, and make the acquaintance of Mr and Mrs Wormwood Scrubbs, the occupants of that apartment. They, like their neighbours at number twenty-seven, were in comfortable circumstances, and like the latter, not much given to travelling for pleasure's sake on a cold raw day in November; but an affair of business which demanded their presence at Bolton had compelled them to sacrifice their ease and comfort, and come to that town on this bleak November day. Mr Scrubbs had long been subject to attacks of gout in the foot; and as he had heard of this disease having a tendency sometimes to shift its seat to the brain or the stomach, when it was apt to assume a more serious type, he had made it a rule to carry about his person in the daytime, and to place under his pillow at night, a certain medicine which an eminent physician had assured him would speedily arrest any such erratic tendency on the part of the malady from which he suffered.
Now, on this particular night, whether from over-exertion, exposure to cold, or some other cause I know not, Mr Scrubbs happened to be visited with certain premonitory symptoms of an approaching attack of gout, whereupon he instinctively felt under his pillow for the valuable specific I have referred to. He then remembered he had inadvertently left it in the pocket of his greatcoat, which he had thrown upon the sofa in the private sitting-room into which Mrs Scrubbs and himself had been ushered on their arrival at the inn; whereupon, being unwilling to disturb his better-half, who was in a profound sleep, he let himself quietly out of bed, and throwing his dressing-gown over his shoulders, proceeded to light his candle. Having done this, he gently opened the door and sallied forth, leaving the door slightly ajar, in order that he might the more easily find the room on his return.
It so chanced just about the time Mr Wormwood Scrubbs was proceeding on the above mission, that Mrs Oliver Brown, who was too fatigued to sleep, suddenly recollected that she had left her reticule with her purse inside it on the table in the room where she and Mr Brown had had their dinner; and wisely considering that it would not be prudent to leave it there till morning, she resolved to descend to the sitting-room and recover the bag at once; accordingly slipping out of bed, she struck a light, and opening the bedroom door, stepped into the corridor into which it led. She then proceeded to assure herself by a reference to certain figures that were painted over the door-frames of the several dormitories that the room she had just quitted was number twenty-seven and no other; and having satisfied her mind on this point, she left the door ajar, and gliding swiftly along the different passages and down the cork-screw-shaped staircase, soon reached the sitting-room, whence, having found the bag she was in search of, she retraced her steps in the same rapid way, exercising her memory as she went along by repeating the number of the room to which she was returning.
Now Mrs Oliver Brown, who, by the way, had an undoubted bump for localities, had formed an idea—and a very correct idea it was—that number twenty-seven was the second room on the left-hand side of the corridor; but on her return, finding the door of this chamber closed, whilst that of the one adjoining it was open, she not unnaturally supposed she might have made a mistake in regard to the position of number twenty-seven; but in order to set all doubt at rest upon this point, she was about to refer to the number on the door-frame, when a sudden gust of wind sweeping along the whole length of the passage extinguished the candle, leaving her in utter darkness. Thus situated, Mrs Oliver Brown did what most ladies (and gentlemen also, I think) would have done under the circumstances: she groped her way along the passage till she came to the open door of number twenty-nine, went softly in, shut the door in the same quiet way, and got into bed, where, being greatly fatigued with all she had undergone, she soon fell fast asleep.
In the meantime, Mr Wormwood Scrubbs having repossessed himself of his gout mixture, had also returned to the corridor, where seeing a door ajar precisely as he had left his own, he at once went in, closed the door, blew out his candle, and popped into bed, where my excellent uncle was still sleeping as peacefully as a baby, and utterly unconscious of the recent migratory movements of Mrs Brown, which were destined to produce such an unlooked-for disturbance in the domestic arrangements of the two families occupying respectively numbers twenty-seven and twenty-nine.
Mr Wormwood Scrubbs, however, though now quite easy both in body and mind, was unable to sleep, and lay awake, first thinking of one thing and then of another, till he was suddenly recalled to the stern realities of life by hearing his wife's voice proceeding apparently from the adjoining room. In a state of immense perplexity, he struck out with his sound leg in the direction of the sleeping figure at his side, when having come in contact with a plump warm body corresponding to that of his amiable helpmate, he paused, and suspending all further investigation for the present, calmly awaited the issue of events. Nor had he very long to wait.
Mrs Wormwood Scrubbs was a lady of a highly nervous and excitable temperament, with whom, when once roused, it would be about as useless and dangerous an experiment to attempt to argue as with a tigress surrounded by a litter of famished cubs. She had just waked up from her first sleep, when happening to put her hand upon that part of the connubial couch where her Wormwood's head was wont to rest, she found it brought in contact with a lace nightcap, and a profusion of long curls that had escaped from beneath it.
'Why, what's this, Scrubbs? What tomfoolery's this you're after? What's this, I say?' tagging, as she spoke, at the head-dress of her supposed husband. 'Why, goodness gracious, it isn't Scrubbs after all!'—as starting up in bed, my aunt in gentle but startled accents implored her to be quiet.