If I were the least bit more persuaded that that black cr-cr were about me still, and that the sacrifice of my eyebrows would deprive him of shelter, by the souls of the Ptolemies I would,--and I will too! Icing the bell, my little dear! John, my--my cigar-box! There is not a cr in the world that can abide the fumes of the havana! Pshaw! sir, I am not the only man who lets his first thoughts upon cold steel end, like this chapter, in--Pff--pff-- pff! CHAPTER IV. Everything in this world is of use, even a black thing crawling over the nape of one's neck! Grim unknown, I shall make of thee--a simile! I think, ma'am, you will allow that if an incident such as I have described had befallen yourself, and you had a proper and lady-like horror of earwigs (however motherly and fond of their offspring), and also of early hornets,--and indeed of all unknown things of the insect tribe with black heads and two great horns, or feelers, or forceps, just by your ear,--I think, ma'am, you will allow that you would find it difficult to settle back to your former placidity of mood and innocent stitch-work. You would feel a something that grated on your nerves and cr'd-cr'd "all over you like," as the children say. And the worst is, that you would be ashamed to say it. You would feel obliged to look pleased and join in the conversation, and not fidget too much, nor always be shaking your flounces and looking into a dark corner of your apron. Thus it is with many other things in life besides black insects. One has a secret care, an abstraction, a something between the memory and the feeling, of a dark crawling cr which one has never dared to analyze. So I sat by my another, trying to smile and talk as in the old time, but longing to move about, and look around, and escape to my own solitude, and take the clothes off my mind, and see what it was that had so troubled and terrified me; for trouble and terror were upon me. And my mother, who was always (Heaven bless her!) inquisitive enough in all that concerned her darling Anachronism, was especially inquisitive that evening. She made me say where I had been, and what I had done, and how I had spent my time; and Fanny Trevanion (whom she had seen, by the way, three or four times, and whom she thought the prettiest person in the world), oh, she must know exactly what I thought of Fanny Trevanion!