yself in a large room fitted up
with benches, and having half-a-dozen skeletons dangling from the roof.
While doing this, he and his friend smiled at each other, and seemed
anxiously awaiting my reply, and enjoying my wonder. At last I satisfied
myself that I was in the anatomical theatre of the University.

"But," said I, "there is something in all this I cannot comprehend.
What--where is the coffin?"

"What coffin, my dear fellow?" said Wunderdudt.

"The coffin that I was in."

"The coffin," said he, smiling; "I suppose it remains where it was put
the day before yesterday."

I rubbed my eyes with vexation, not knowing what to make of these
perplexing circumstances. "I mean," said I, "the coffin--that is, the
coffin I drew over upon me when I fell."

"I do not know of any coffin," answered he, laughing heartily; "but I
know very well that you have pulled upon yourself my good mahogany
table; there it lies." And on looking, I observed the large table,
which stood in the middle of the hall, overturned upon the floor. Doctor
Wunderdudt (he was professor of anatomy to the college) now made me
retire, and had me put in bed till clothing could be procured. But I
would not allow him to depart till he had unravelled the strange web of
perplexity in which I still found myself involved. Nothing would satisfy
me but a philosophical solution of the problem, "Why was I not buried
alive, as I had reason to expect?" The doctor expounded this intricate
point in the following manner:--

"The day before yesterday," said he, "I informed the resurrectionists in
the service of the University, that I was in want of a subject, desiring
them at the same time to set to work with all speed. That very night
they returned, assuring me that they had fished up one which would
answer to a hair, being both young and vigorous. In order to inform
myself of the quality of what they brought me, I examined the body,
when, to my indignation and grief, I found that they had disinterred my
excellent friend, Mr Frederick Stadt, who had been buried the same day."

"What!" said I, starting up from the bed, "did they disinter me?--the
scoundrels!"

"You may well call them scoundrels," said the professor, "for preventing
a gentleman from enjoying the pleasure of being buried alive. The deed
was certainly most felonious; and if you are at all anxious, I shall
have them reported to the Syndic, and tried for their impertinent
interference. But to proceed.