l over
the bar hung a yellowed hand-bill, in a warped frame, announcing that
"the Next Annual N.H. Agricultural Fair" would take place on the 10th of
September, 1841. There was no other furniture or decoration in this
dismal apartment, except the cobwebs which festooned the ceiling,
hanging down here and there like stalactites.

Mr. Sewell set the candlestick on the mantel-shelf, and threw some
pine-knots on the fire, which immediately broke into a blaze, and showed
him to be a lank, narrow-chested man, past sixty, with sparse,
steel-gray hair, and small, deep-set eyes, perfectly round, like a
fish's, and of no particular color. His chief personal characteristics
seemed to be too much feet and not enough teeth. His sharply cut, but
rather simple face, as he turned it towards me, wore a look of
interrogation. I replied to his mute inquiry by taking out my
pocket-book and handing him my business-card, which he held up to the
candle and perused with great deliberation.

"You're a civil engineer, are you?" he said, displaying his gums, which
gave his countenance an expression of almost infantile innocence. He
made no further audible remark, but mumbled between his thin lips
something which an imaginative person might have construed into, "If
you're a civil engineer, I'll be blessed if I wouldn't like to see an
uncivil one!"

Mr. Sewell's growl, however, was worse than his bite,--owing to his lack
of teeth, probably--for he very good-naturedly set himself to work
preparing supper for me. After a slice of cold ham, and a warm punch, to
which my chilled condition gave a grateful flavor, I went to bed in a
distant chamber in a most amiable mood, feeling satisfied that Jones was
a donkey to bother himself about his identity.

When I awoke, the sun was several hours high. My bed faced a window, and
by raising myself on one elbow I could look out on what I expected would
be the main street. To my astonishment I beheld a lonely country road
winding up a sterile hill and disappearing over the ridge. In a
cornfield at the right of the road was a small private graveyard,
inclosed by a crumbling stone wall with a red gate. The only thing
suggestive of life was this little corner lot occupied by death. I got
out of bed and went to the other window. There I had an uninterrupted
view of twelve miles of open landscape, with Mount Agamenticus in the
purple distance. Not a house or a spire in sight. "Well," I exclaimed,
"Greenton doesn'