But this was momentary . Peter the Destroyer resumed the task which Fate had assigned him , nor faltered again till it was accomplished . In the course of his search he met with many things that are usually found in the ruins of an old house , and also with some that are not . What seemed most to the purpose was a rusty key which had been thrust into a chink of the wall , with a wooden label appended to the handle , bearing the initials `` P.G. '' Another singular discovery was that of a bottle of wine walled up in an old oven . A tradition ran in the family that Peter 's grandfather , a jovial officer in the old French war , had set aside many dozens of the precious liquor for the benefit of topers then unborn . Peter needed no cordial to sustain his hopes , and therefore kept the wine to gladden his success . Many half-pence did he pick up that had been lost through the cracks of the floor , and some few Spanish coins , and the half of a broken sixpence which had doubtless been a love-token . There was likewise a silver coronation medal of George III . But old Peter Goldthwaite 's strong-box fled from one dark corner to another , or otherwise eluded the second Peter 's clutches till , should he seek much farther , he must burrow into the earth . We will not follow him in his triumphant progress step by step . Suffice it that Peter worked like a steam-engine and finished in that one winter the job which all the former inhabitants of the house , with time and the elements to aid them , had only half done in a century . Except the kitchen , every room and chamber was now gutted . The house was nothing but a shell , the apparition of a house , as unreal as the painted edifices of a theatre . It was like the perfect rind of a great cheese in which a mouse had dwelt and nibbled till it was a cheese no more . And Peter was the mouse . What Peter had torn down , Tabitha had burnt up , for she wisely considered that without a house they should need no wood to warm it , and therefore economy was nonsense . Thus the whole house might be said to have dissolved in smoke and flown up among the clouds through the great black flue of the kitchen chimney . It was an admirable parallel to the feat of the man who jumped down his own throat . On the night between the last day of winter and the first of spring every chink and cranny had been ransacked except within the precincts of the kitchen . This fated evening was an ugly one .
A snow-storm had set in some hours before , and was still driven and tossed about the atmosphere by a real hurricane which fought against the house as if the prince of the air in person were putting the final stroke to XXXXX 's labors .
Goldthwaite III Peter Tabitha chink cranny evening flue love-token rind