Chauncey moved forward awkwardly without answering. “Stop there one moment, will you?” Mrs. Bogardus rose and demonstrated. “You notice those two boards are loose. Now, I put this chair here,”--she laid her hand on the back to still its motion. “Step this way. You see? The chair rocks of itself. So would any chair with a spring board under it. That accounts for _that_, I think. Now come over here.” Chauncey placed himself as she directed in front of the high mantel with the clock above it. She stood at his side and they listened in silence to that sound which Mary Hornbeck, deceased, had deemed a spiritual warning. “Would you call that a 'ticking'? Is that like any sound an insect could make?” the mistress asked. “I should call it more like a 'ting,'” said Chauncey. “It comes kind o' muffled like through the chimbly--a person might be mistaken if they was upset in their nerves considerable.” “What old people call the 'death-watch' is supposed to be an insect that lives in the walls of old houses, isn't it? and gives warning with a ticking sound when somebody is going to be called away? Now to me that sounds like a soft blow struck regularly on a piece of hollow iron--say the end of a stove-pipe sticking in the chimney. When I first came up here, there was only a steady murmur of wind and rain. Then the clouds thinned and the sun came out and drops began to fall--distinctly. Your wife says the ticking was heard on a day like this, broken and showery. Now, if you will unscrew that clock, I think you will find there's a stove-pipe hole behind it; and a piece of pipe shoved into the chimney just far enough to catch the drops as they gather and fall.” Chauncey went to work. He sweated in the airless room. The powerful screws blunted the lips of his tool but would not start. “I guess I'll have to give it up for to-day. The screws are rusted in solid. Want I should pry her out of the woodwork?” “No, don't do that,” said Mrs. Bogardus. “Why should we spoil the panel? This seems a very comfortable room. My son is right. It would be foolish to tear it down. Such a place as this might be very useful if you people would get over your notions about it.” “I never had no notions,” Chauncey asserted. “When the women git talkin' they like to make out a good story, and whichever one sees the most and hears the most makes the biggest sensation.” Mrs. Bogardus waited till he had finished without appearing to have heard what he was saying. “Where is the key to this door?” she laid her hand over a knob to the right of the stairs.