device for throwing Mr. Mule upon those shins. Hereafter, when Mule comes coolly to collate the two cases in point of torment, he will see the absurdity of having entered Mr. Ferdinand’s villany into his black day-book, with a Latin notula annexed, implying that Furcifer iste Ferdinandus Lawler was a greater plague to him than the fiend and all his imps ever had been or would be. The result shewed how wrong he was. Mr. Ferdinand’s assaults upon his shins left Mr. Mule courage enough to rise and run after him, and at one time really with some chance of overtaking him, and bringing him to condign punishment; whereas at present, after sky-rocketing, he immediately collapsed upon the centre of the bed,—and lay in a sort of round heap (rudis indigestaque moles), without a thought of avenging his shins. So lying, however, and now totally denuded of all bed-clothes, he heard the better; and it struck him in the next course of ululations, that he distinguished the voice of his own gardener’s wife; “Beyond a doubt,” said he, “it is Nelly Hagedorn;” and the very next moment brought to his ears the cry of “Thieves! Thieves!”
“Thieves!” said Mr. Mule exultingly, “God be praised! Thieves are better than ghosts any how.” And he rose with alacrity: again he grew “spuriously courageous,” according to the Stagyrite; for he was in an immense passion. And now, indeed, there was some ground for a parallel between his present mood and that in which he had pursued the young malefactor: the same passion possessed him—vengeance; and for the same wrongs—violated shins. He strode to the window, and roundly charged Nelly Hagedorn with burglarious attempts on his house, and murderous attempts on himself; all which, however, ranked lower in the scale of guilt than another offence, which he was obliged to suppress, of having swindled him into unutterable panic by personating a ghost from the Red Sea. Nelly defended herself on the charges of burglary and murder, by stating the case; she had the thieves under lock and key; they might break prison; she had done what she could to rouse the family by “audible ideas:” those failing, what remained but “tangible ideas?” And what mattered a few panes of glass in comparison of liberating the premises from nightly intrusions of thieves?
There was something certainly in this statement: these thieves might be the very people who had opened Mrs. Tabitha’s window; in which case, three sets of ghosts would have evanesced (or rather consolidated) into a rose-tree, Nelly Hagedorn, and a couple of thieves. Mr. Mule was mollified; roused his household; and went down stairs to admit Mrs. Hagedorn.
