furniture. A tremendous punch
in the side of the head upset me and made me lose my temper. Rising in a
rage, I grappled some man, tripped up his heels, got on his chest, and
never left off belaboring him until I felt pretty sure that he would
keep quiet during the rest of the _soiree_. I hope sincerely that this
suffering individual was Mr. John M. Riley; but, from the rotundity of
stomach which I bestrode, I very much fear that it was the Doctor.

All this while the house resounded with outcries of, "Who's there?"
"What's the matter?" "Father!" "Henry!" "Jenny!" "Maria!" "Thieves!"
"Murder!" "Police!" and so forth. Of course I did not feel disposed to
tell who was there; and in actual fact I could not have explained
what was the matter. Accordingly I left all these inquisitive people
unsatisfied, and busied myself solely with my fallen antagonist.
Quitting him at last in a state of quiescence, I knocked over a person
who had been attacking me in the rear, and then blundered into a
passage, which I suppose to have been the front-hall, just as a light
glimmered up in the rooms behind me. It gives one a very odd sensation
to tread on a prostrate body, not knowing whether it is dead or alive,
whether it is a man or a woman. I had that sensation in ascending a
stairway which seemed to be the only egress from the aforesaid passage.
The individual made no movement, and I did not stop to count his or her
pulses. Without feeling at all disposed to take my oath on the matter, I
rather suspect that a negro servant-girl had fainted away there in the
act of trying to run off in her nightgown. Upstairs I tumbled, resolved
to get upon the roof and slide down the lightning-rod, or else jump from
a window. Pushing open a door, which I fell against, I found myself in
a pretty little bedroom lighted by a single candle, articles of female
costume banging across chairs and scattered over dressing-tables, while
on the floor, just as she had swooned in her terror, lay a blonde girl
of nineteen or twenty, pale as marble, but beautiful. Right through my
alarm jarred a throb of mingled self-reproach and pity and admiration. I
tossed a pile of bedclothes over her, kissed the long light-brown hair
which rippled on the straw matting, daguerreotyped the face on my memory
with a glance, blew out the light, opened a window, and slipped out of
it. It is unpleasant to drop through darkness, not knowing how far you
will fall, nor whether you will not ali