as with some difficulty I
could get through the explanation, being frequently interrupted with
bursts of laughter from my auditor; which, indeed, I now began to
think very natural. In a word, to cut the story short, my friend
having repeated the conference verbatim to Mr. Bub, he was
good-natured enough to join in the mirth, saying, with one of his best
sardonics, he "had always had a misgiving that his unlucky ugly face
would one day or other be the death of somebody." Well, we passed the
day together, and having cracked a social bottle after dinner, parted,
I believe, as heartily friends as we should have been (which is saying
a great deal) had he indeed proved the favorite villain in my Novel.
But, alas! with the loss of my villain, away went the Novel.

Here again I was at a stand; and in vain did I torture my brains
for another pursuit. But why should I seek one? In fortune I have a
competence,--why not be as independent in mind? There are thousands in
the world whose sole object in life is to attain the means of living
without toil; and what is any literary pursuit but a series of mental
labor, ay, and oftentimes more wearying to the spirits than that of
the body. Upon the whole, I came to the conclusion, that it was a very
foolish thing to do any thing. So I seriously set about trying to do
nothing.

Well, what with whistling, hammering down all the nails in the house
that had started, paring my nails, pulling my fire to pieces and
rebuilding it, changing my clothes to full dress though I dined alone,
trying to make out the figure of a Cupid on my discolored ceiling, and
thinking of a lady I had not thought of for ten years before, I got
along the first week tolerably well. But by the middle of the second
week,--'t was horrible! the hours seemed to roll over me like
mill-stones. When I awoke in the morning I felt like an Indian
devotee, the day coming upon me like the great temple of Juggernaut;
cracking of my bones beginning after breakfast; and if I had any
respite, it was seldom for more than half an hour, when a newspaper
seemed to stop the wheels;--then away they went, crack, crack, noon
and afternoon, till I found myself by night reduced to a perfect
jelly,--good for nothing but to be ladled into bed, with a greater
horror than ever at the thought of sunrise.

This will never do, said I; a toad in the heart of a tree lives a more
comfortable life than a nothing-doing man; and I began to perceive
a very