red the more, still
retaining their places. I have in my lifetime laughed till I nearly
became spasmodic; but never were my risible muscles put to greater
tension than upon this occasion. The wall, as I said before, had only
that day received a coat of mortar, and of course was quite soft and
yielding, when Joe and Peter thought proper to make it their pillow; it
was, nevertheless, setting fast, from the heat and lights of an eighteen
hours' carousal; and, in the morning, when my brother awakened his
guests, the mortar had completely set and their hair being the thing
most calculated to amalgamate therewith, the entire of Joe's stock,
together with his _queue_, and half his head, was thoroughly and
irrecoverably bedded in the greedy and now marble cement, so that, if
determined to move, he must have taken the wall along with him, for
separate it would not. One side of Peter's head was in the same state of
imprisonment. Nobody was able to assist them, and there they both stuck
fast.

A consultation was now held on this pitiful case, which I maliciously
endeavored to prolong as much as I could, and which was, in fact, every
now and then interrupted by a roar from Peter or Joe, as they made fresh
efforts to rise. At length, it was proposed by Dan Tyron to send for the
stone cutter, and get him to cut them out of the wall with a chisel. I
was literally unable to speak two sentences for laughing. The old woman
meanwhile tried to soften the obdurate wall with melted butter and new
milk--but in vain. I related the school story how Hannibal had worked
through the Alps with hot vinegar and hot irons: this experiment
likewise was made, but Hannibal's solvent had no better success than the
old crone's.

Peter Alley, being of a more passionate nature, grew ultimately quite
outrageous: he roared, gnashed his teeth, and swore vengeance against
the mason; but as he was only held by one side, a thought at last struck
him: he asked for two knives, which being brought, he whetted one
against the other, and introducing the blades close to his skull, sawed
away at cross corners till he was liberated, with the loss only of half
his hair and a piece of his scalp, which he had sliced off in zeal and
haste for his liberty. I never saw a fellow so extravagantly happy! Fur
was scraped from the crown of a hat, to stop the bleeding; his head was
duly tied up with the old woman's _praskeen_; and he was soon in a state
of bodily convalescence. Our