ll adapted to secure comfort during the hot season. His
expression, as he stood watching the first person singular, seemed full
of doubt. At last, as if determined to remain in doubt no longer, he
touched the somnolent first person lightly on the shoulder. First person
singular opened his eyes with a spasmodic start, stared wildly about him
for a moment, until his eyes rested upon the disturber of his slumbers.

"Excuse me, sir," said second person singular, "but an irresistible
impulse led me to awaken you. The fact is, sir, a few years since, I had
an intimate friend who was lost at sea, and such is the resemblance you
bear to him, the thought struck me that you might be he. Were you ever
lost at sea, sir?"

First person singular looked with some little astonishment upon his
interrogator. He wiped the perspiration from his forehead, assumed an
erect position in his chair, and replied:

"I don't think I ever was."

"It may have been your brother," said second person singular.

"It couldn't have been, for I never had a brother. By the way, I did
have an uncle who, on one occasion, when hunting in Illinois, some
fifteen years since, was lost on a prairie. Perhaps it's that
circumstance to which you refer?"

"No, it was at sea. I'm sorry, sir, that I disturbed your sleep."

"You needn't be," was the reply, "for I went to sleep without intending
to do so."

"Do you ever imbibe?" was the next interrogation.

First person singular said he was guilty of no small vices, though he
didn't care if he did take a brandy smash. The parties then adjourned to
the inner temple of the Shanghae. Second person singular ordered the
smash for his companion, and a sherry cobbler (so called from its
supposed potency in patching up the human frame, when it is about
falling to pieces under the influence of weather of a high temperature)
for himself. A succession of singular coincidences followed. Each party
suggested at the same moment, that it was confoundedly hot in the sun.
Both simultaneously imbibed. Each said he felt better after it, and each
undoubtedly told the truth. Both arose at the same instant, inquired who
the other was, whereupon two autobiographies were extemporized in brief.
They disclosed the following facts. First person singular's name was
Myndert Van Dam; he was a descendent of one of the Dutch families who
originally colonized Manhattan Island. He had been three years absent in
Europe, and on returning a few week