ry
creak of her sandals and every whisper of her lips is full of mystery and
fear.

You understand, then, distinctly, that I do not believe there is anything
about this singular little neighbor of mine which is as it should not be.
Probably a visit to his room would clear up all that has puzzled me, and
make me laugh at the notions which began, I suppose, in nightmares, and
ended by keeping my imagination at work so as almost to make me
uncomfortable at times. But it is not so easy to visit him as some of
our other boarders, for various reasons which I will not stop to mention.
I think some of them are rather pleased to get "the Professor" under
their ceilings.

The young man John, for instance, asked me to come up one day and try
some "old Burbon," which he said was A 1. On asking him what was the
number of his room, he answered, that it was forty-'leven, sky-parlor
floor, but that I shouldn't find it, if he did n't go ahead to show me
the way. I followed him to his habitat, being very willing to see in
what kind of warren he burrowed, and thinking I might pick up something
about the boarders who had excited my curiosity.

Mighty close quarters they were where the young man John bestowed himself
and his furniture; this last consisting of a bed, a chair, a bureau, a
trunk, and numerous pegs with coats and "pants" and "vests,"--as he was
in the habit of calling waist-coats and pantaloons or trousers,--hanging
up as if the owner had melted out of them. Several prints were pinned up
unframed,--among them that grand national portrait-piece, "Barnum
presenting Ossian E. Dodge to Jenny Lind," and a picture of a famous
trot, in which I admired anew the cabalistic air of that imposing array
of expressions, and especially the Italicized word, "Dan Mace names b. h.
Major Slocum," and "Hiram Woodruff names g. m. Lady Smith." "Best three
in five. Time: 2.40, 2.46, 2.50."

That set me thinking how very odd this matter of trotting horses is, as
an index of the mathematical exactness of the laws of living mechanism.
I saw Lady Suffolk trot a mile in 2.26. Flora Temple has trotted close
down to 2.20; and Ethan Allen in 2.25, or less. Many horses have trotted
their mile under 2.30; none that I remember in public as low down as
2.20. From five to ten seconds, then, in about a hundred and sixty is
the whole range of the maxima of the present race of trotting horses.
The same thing is seen in the running of men. Many can run a