The String of Pearls (1850), p. 623

light out, if you don't mind. Do try and be a little steady with it; and your teeth chatter so in your head, that they are for all the world like a set of castanets."
"Oh, how you do talk. Come, listen at the door; I must say I don't hear anything; but I have the greatest respect for ghosts, I have. I never say one
word against the dead—God bless 'em all!"
While this man held the light—or rather waived it to and fro in his agitation—the other, with his ear placed flat against the panel of the door, listened attentively. All was perfectly still in the first-floor, and he said—
"Perhaps they haven't begun yet, you know."
"Perhaps not;—shall we go away, now?"
"Oh, no—no. There's no end of curious things in the room; and now that we are here, let's go in, at all events, and have a little look about is. Don't be afraid. Come—come."
"Oh—I—I ain't exactly afraid, only, you see, I don't see much the use of going in, and—and, you know, we have already heard an odd noise in the shop,
to-night."
"But that was nothing, for I looked, you know."
"Yes—yes,—but—but I'm afraid the fire will go out below, do you know."
"Let it go, then. If you are too much of a coward to come with me into this room, say so at once, and you can go down stairs while I have a look at it myself. You can't have the candle, though, for it is no use my going in by myself."
"What! do you expect me to go in the dark? Oh dear, no, I could not do that ; open the door, and I will follow you in; I ain't a bit afraid, only, you see, I feel very much interested, that's all."
"Oh, well, that's quite another thing."
With this, the most courageous of the two men opened the door of the front room on the first-floor, and peeped into it.
"All's right," he said. "There ain't so much as a mouse stirring. Come on?"
Highly encouraged by this announcement, the other followed him; and they allowed the door to creak nearly shut after them.
While this hesitation upon the stairs was going on, Todd had been about half way up from the passage, crouching down for fear they should by chance look that way, and see him; but when he found that they had fairly gone into the front room, he made as much speed to the top of the stairs as was consistent with extreme caution, and laying his hand upon the handle of the lock of the door of the back room on that floor, he noiselessly turned it, and the door at once
yielding, he glided in.
The two rooms communicated with each other by a pair of folding-doors, and the light that the men carried sent some beams through the ill-fitting action of the two, so that Tood could see very well about him.

CHAPTER CXLVL.
THERE IS A FIRE IN FLEET STREET AFTER ALL.—TODD ESCAPES.

When once he had gained that back room, Todd considered that his design against the peace of mind of the two men was all but accomplished; and it was with great difficulty that he kept himself from giving a hideous chuckle, that would at once have opened their ears to the fact that some one was close at hand, who, whether of this wot Id or the next, was a proficient in horrid noises.
He controlled this ebullition of ill-timed mirth, however, and listened attentively.
"There don't seem much else beside lots of clothes," said one of the men, "and hats, and sticks, and umbrellas."