Page:Knight's Quarterly Magazine series 1 volume 3 (August–November 1824).djvu/465

 or, according to an idle hypothesis of his own, with cold. But, after the agitation of the curtains had continued for some time, a breeze of refreshing hope sprung up in his mind: and, in a noble transport of courage, he exclaimed, “Why this is the wind, Mrs. Tabitha: there’s a window open in your room, Mrs. Tabitha.” “I beg your pardon, that’s impossible,” replied Mrs. Tabitha; “I fastened all the windows the very last thing, I did: a window may be open, Mr. Mule; but, if so, the window must be in your room, Mr. Mule.”—Mr. Mule, was not a man to be put down in that way: none of the Mules was ever known to give up a thesis to such shallow grounds of opposition. “If I were not in a considerable state of perspiration, Mrs. Tabitha, I would just now come into your room, and detect you in your gross absurdities.”

“And, if I had not the rheumatism in my neck, I would step out of bed and expose you, Mr. Mule, by shutting down that window which at this moment I hear dithering about in your room.”

This gave the coup-de-grace to Mr. Mule’s expiring patience. Aristotle, in examining the different species of spurious courage, (which, as we remember, he makes out to be five,) reckons as one amongst them, the courage inspired by anger. Who minds what Aristotle says? At this moment it enabled Mr. Mule to do what his whole stock of genuine courage would never have compassed, viz., to get out of bed, put on his dressing-gown, and advance softly to Mrs. Tabitha’s room. Yet Aristotle may be right after all: for that is certainly spurious courage which breaks down without a moment’s warning, as now happened to the courage of Mr. Mule. Having no knowledge of his approach,—Mrs. Tabitha naturally took the white lining of his dressing-gown, as it fell within the moonlight, for a ghost. She shrieked out to that effect; and Mr. Mule exclaiming, “Where, where?” rushed back, and dived into bed. The proximity of his voice, however, undeceived Mrs. Tabitha, who hastened to undeceive Mr. Mule. He was naturally incensed at finding himself made a handle of for frightening himself: there were things enough in this world to frighten Mr. Mule without adding Mr. Mule to the number: his anger returned in all its strength; and consequently his spurious courage. He marched with the heart of a lion, back into Mrs. Tabitha’s quarters, and there exposed, as she deserved, her “gross absurdities.” Two negatives make one affirmative; but it has not yet been ascertained that two cowards make one hero. However, Mrs. Tabitha drew thus much confidence from the presence of Mr. Mule, that she ventured to put her head out of the curtains; and subscribed to the undeniable fact that the window was open: though how, or by whose machinations, she conceived to be past all solution, except on the hypothesis of ghosts.