The Law and Lawyers of Pickwick | Page 6

up in his bedroom closet, and took a
dose of arsenic. The steward thought he had run away; opened the door
and put a bill up. Another man came, took the chambers, furnished
them, and went to live there. Somehow or other he couldn't
sleep--always restless and uncomfortable. 'Odd,' says he. 'I'll make the
other room my bedchamber, and this my sitting-room.' He made the
change, and slept very well at night, but suddenly found that, somehow,
he couldn't read in the evening; he got nervous and uncomfortable, and
used to be always snuffing his candles and staring about him. 'I can't
make this out,' said he, when he came home from the play one night,
and was drinking a glass of cold grog, with his back to the wall, in
order that he mightn't be able to fancy there was any one behind him--'I
can't make it out,' said he; and just then his eyes rested on the little
closet that had been always locked up, and a shudder ran through his
whole frame from top to toe. 'I have felt this strange feeling before,'
said he. 'I can't help thinking there's something wrong about that closet.'
He made a strong effort, plucked up his courage, shivered the lock with
a blow or two of the poker, opened the door, and there, sure enough,
standing bolt upright in the corner, was the last tenant, with a little
bottle clasped firmly in his hand, and his face--well!" As the little old
man concluded he looked round on the attentive faces of his wondering

auditory with a smile of grim delight.
"What strange things these are you tell us of, sir," said Mr. Pickwick,
minutely scanning the old man's countenance by the aid of his glasses.
"Strange!" said the little old man. "Nonsense; you think them strange
because you know nothing about it. They are funny, but not
uncommon."
"Funny!" exclaimed Mr. Pickwick, involuntarily.
"Yes, funny, are they not?" replied the little old man, with a diabolical
leer; and then, without pausing for an answer, he continued,--
"I knew another man--let me see--forty years ago now--who took an
old, damp, rotten set of chambers in one of the most ancient Inns, that
had been shut up and empty for years and years before. There were lots
of old women's stories about the place, and it certainly was very far
from being a cheerful one; but he was poor, and the rooms were cheap,
and that would have been quite a sufficient reason for him, if they had
been ten times worse than they really were. He was obliged to take
some mouldering fixtures that were on the place, and, among the rest,
was a great lumbering wooden press for papers, with large glass doors,
and a green curtain inside; a pretty useless thing for him, for he had no
papers to put in it; and as to his clothes, he carried them about with him,
and that wasn't very hard work either. Well, he had moved in all his
furniture--it wasn't quite a truck-full--and had sprinkled it about the
room, so as to make the four chairs look as much like a dozen as
possible, and was sitting down before the fire at night, drinking the first
glass of two gallons of whisky he had ordered on credit, wondering
whether it would ever be paid for, and if so, in how many years' time,
when his eyes encountered the glass doors of the wooden press. 'Ah,'
says he, 'if I hadn't been obliged to take that ugly article at the old
broker's valuation I might have got something comfortable for the
money. I'll tell you what it is, old fellow,' he said, speaking aloud to the
press, having nothing else to speak to, 'if it wouldn't cost more to break
up your old carcase than it would ever be worth afterwards, I'd have a
fire out of you in less than no time.' He had hardly spoken the words

when a sound, resembling a faint groan, appeared to issue from the
interior of the case. It startled him at first, but thinking, on a moment's
reflection, that it must be some young fellow in the next chamber, who
had been dining out, he put his feet on the fender, and raised the poker
to stir the fire. At that moment the sound was repeated, and one of the
glass doors slowly opening disclosed a pale and emaciated figure in
soiled and worn apparel standing erect in the press. The figure was tall
and thin, and the countenance expressive of care and anxiety; but there
was something in the hue of the skin, and gaunt and unearthly
appearance of the whole form, which no being of this world was ever
seen to wear. 'Who