perhaps better to go suddenly like this, than to have been subjected to
a long, lingering illness.

His wrists were becoming more and more weak and shaky, and there was a
sense of emptiness within him, natural perhaps, considering the quality
of his noon-day meal. His thoughts began to hover, with a curious
bitterness over the memory of that apricot pie. It was the one thing
that interfered with the even tenor of his philosophical reflections.
The most singular resentment toward it had taken possession of his mind.

"Look here," he said to himself; "I'll get my mind clear of that
confounded pie, and then I'll drop and have done with it." He knew very
well that he could not keep his hold two minutes longer, and he was
determined to "die game."

For a few seconds Mr. Fetherbee very nearly lost his mental grip. It
seemed to be loosening, loosening, just as his fingers were doing. Then,
as in a sort of trance, there rose before him a visible picture of the
pleasant, kindly face he had so warmly loved, so heartily liked. Still
in a trance-like condition, he became aware that that was the impression
he would like to carry with him into eternity. He let it sink quietly
into his soul, a soothing, fortifying draught; then, unconscious of
philosophy, of heroism, of whatever we may choose to call the calm
acceptance of the inevitable, he loosed his hold.

He fell of course only three inches. Anybody might have foreseen it,
anybody, that is, who had not been suspended at the end of a rope in a
pitch black hole. There is, however, something more convincing in
experience than in anything else, and, as we have seen, Mr. Fetherbee
had not once thought of the possibility of a friendly platform close
beneath his feet. The discovery of it was none the less exhilarating. He
did not in the least understand it, but he was entirely ready to believe
in it.

He promptly pulled out his match-box and the bit of candle he was
provided with. The dim, uncertain light cheered and warmed his very
soul.

He found himself standing on a broad stout plank, built securely across
the shaft. From the under side of this plank hung a rope like the one
gently swaying before his eyes. He was saved; and as he breathed
something very like a prayer of thanksgiving, it suddenly struck him
that he had escaped not only an untimely, but an undignified end. "I'm
glad I haven't done anything to mortify Louisa," he said to himself, and
he felt that he had not unt