al volunteer days, but the order to
"sling hammocks" would not have been easy to obey under the present
circumstances. I was forced to put my screws in the floor and hang my
net over some heavy furniture; but when I got in, the table that I had
chiefly depended upon gave way with a crash, and I found myself on the
floor. My friend laughed heartily; he had never seen a hammock before,
and, spite of my representations, I do not think he was properly
impressed by the great utility of the invention. Of course I was not to
be foiled, so I cast about for another method of "fixing." I tried
several dodges, but nothing answered exactly; something always gave way
after a few minutes of repose--either I came down with a bump, or some
abominable, ramshackle chest of drawers got over-turned.

Now my friend was very tired and sleepy, and desired nothing so much as
a little repose. My experiments ceased to interest him, and the noise
caused by my repeated misfortunes irritated him. A large-minded man
would have admired my tenacity of purpose, but he did not. One can never
tell what people are till we travel with them. In a tone of mingled
solicitude and irritation he offered to vacate his bed in my favour. He
declared he would willingly lie on the hard floor, or indeed, if I would
only consent to take his place, he would sit bolt upright in a chair
through the livelong night.

"I will do anything," he added piteously, "if you will only be quiet
and not try to hang yourself any more in that horrible netting."

I would not hear of my friend leaving his bed, and after one or two more
mischances self and hammock were suspended for the night at an angle a
trifle too low for the head. Except for the honour and glory of the
thing, perhaps I might have slept as well on the floor; but one does not
carry a patent contrivance all across Europe to be balked of its use
after all.

My friend woke me once during the night by shaking me roughly. He said I
had nightmare, and made "such a devil of a row that he could not sleep."
I have some dreamy recollection of finding myself in a London
drawing-room in the inexpressibly scanty garments of a Rusniack, and
when I turned to leave in all decent haste I found the way barred by an
insolent fellow with the head of a buffalo bull. When I awoke in the
early morning I found my friend already dressed and rather sulky. He
observed that he had never met a man so addicted to nightmare as myself,
adding, that