a state of the wildest credulity and the very narrowest
distrust, and my only astonishment now is, how I resisted impulses
plainly suggested by coming insanity.

At one time I thought of calling O'Kelly out; then my indignation was
directed against some other of the company, for either a real or a
fancied grievance. Perhaps they had all been in the league against
me, and that I had been invited merely to make a sport of my absurd
pretensions, and to afford laughter by my vanity. Then it occurred to me
that it was the Prince himself who was insulted by my companionship, and
that they who had dared to make me the means of such an outrage should
be held accountable.

Lastly came the thought, Is the whole a dream? Have I been drugged to
play some absurd and ridiculous part, and shall I be exposed to ridicule
when I appear abroad again? This impression was strengthened by the
appearance of my dress, so unlike anything I had ever worn before. Of
the incidents of the card-table I could remember next to nothing. A
few trivial facts of the game, an accidental event in the play itself,
remained in my memory, but that was all. I fancied I had been a heavy
loser; but how, when, or to whom, I knew not. I opened my pocket-book,
and found four notes for fifty pounds each; but how they came there I
could not conceive! And yet, said I, all this took place yesterday! and
what was I before that?--where did I live, and with whom associate? My
head began to turn, the strangest thoughts chased each other through my
brain. Incidents of the street, collisions and accidents of all kinds,
were mingled with events of the previous evening; want and squalor stood
side by side with splendor, and the bland accents of royalty blended
themselves with the brutal exclamations of my former fellows. Then there
flashed across me the thought that the drama in which I had been made
to perform was not yet played out. They mean me to figure further on the
boards, said I to myself; the money has been supplied to me to tempt
me into extravagance which shall make me even more ridiculous still. My
every action watched, my words listened to, my gestures noted down, I
am to be the butt of their sarcastic pleasure, and all my pretensions to
the' habits, the feelings, and the manners of a gentleman be held up as
a subject for mockery and derision.

I half dreaded to ring the bell and summon the waiter, lest I should be
exposing myself to a spy on my actions. When I a