"You have forgotten that it is the first of April. The day may have had some influence upon your dressing-case," remarked one of the ladies present.
"I declare, I have not thought of that," said he, and, springing from the table, he ran to his room, returning with something which he begged the ladies to examine. It proved to be a thick, fair slice of a raw potato, in size and color so much like his own soap, which had been removed, that he had detected no difference, except that it refused to form a lather. This was the work of my mischievous niece, who looked at it very gravely, and remarked, with much demureness—
"I always knew that you Irish were fond of potatoes, but was not aware that you carried it to such an excess as to shave with that vegetable."
It would have better pleased me had O'Killigan been angry; but the Irishman took the joke, and all the speeches made at his expense, with entire good-humor, laughingly assuring the ladies that he would be revenged before night. And, as he knew not whom to suspect, he adopted a course which involved most of us in its consequences. When we retire for the night, those who are not better provided equip themselves with a candle, of which a supply stands ready in the lower hall. Such a fuss as I had with my light this evening! It went out as soon as I reached my own door; and, after relighting it several times by means of matches, the tallow was exhausted, and I discovered that the blackened remnant of wick was stuck into a carrot. That miserable Irishman had enlisted Biddy Flyn, the chambermaid, in his service, and this afternoon they spent two whole hours in the basement at their nefarious work, trimming off carrots and giving them a very thin coating of grease. Mrs. Mashum herself did not escape, for, just as she began taking her usual rounds to see that all was safe for the night, her treacherous light went out, leaving her in total darkness—in the lower regions, too, for she was on the point of inspecting a keg of mackerel in the cellar.
At this identical moment, having used up all my matches in vain endeavors to light a candle, which, like its manufacturer's locks, I had found to be carroty, I was on my way to the kitchen in pursuit of a more reliable means of illumination, when I heard Mrs. Mashum scream out—
"Bring a light, Biddy, for goodness sake! I shall step into this rat-trap that you've set, if I stir an inch in the dark."
And all the while the shameful Biddy stood holding her sides, and laughing in a most unreasonable way. Several persons were running along the upper hall calling for lights, the ladies in a sort of demi-toilet, and one of the young men, a dry-goods clerk, who dresses his hair with a curling-tongs, having on a black silk night-cap. But the real culprit did not suffer, after all, for Ann Sophia has her own solar lamp.
While these distressing events were transpiring, that mean Irishman, with his big nose and red head, sat in the parlor, as cool as possible, reading the "London News" by the light of a brilliant camphene lamp. I wonder his hair did not ignite and cause an explosion. It would have served him quite right.
Strange to say, Mrs. Mashum is not at all offended either at O'Killigan or his accomplice, but has enjoyed their mischief in a way to me utterly unaccountable. I suppose Sam would say that she knows how to take a joke; for my part, they are things which I do not wish to know how to take myself; I wash my hands of all participation in such knowledge.
I have obtained a lamp that shall last till I have finished this narrative of to-day's outrageous proceedings. On passing the parlor-door, I heard that disagreeable O'Killigan say to his landlady, in reply to some of her pretended threats of punishment—