were not slight
--I leaned my back against the wall of the room, which I now, for the
first time, perceived was covered with a very peculiar and novel species
of hanging--no less than a kind of rough, green baize cloth, that moved
and floated at every motion of the air. I paid little attention to this,
till suddenly turning my head, something gave way behind it. I felt
myself struck upon the back of the neck, and fell forward into the room,
covered by a perfect avalanche of fenders, fire-irons, frying-pans, and
copper kettles, mingled with the lesser artillery of small nails, door
keys, and holdfasts. There I lay amid the most vociferous mirth I ever
listened to, under the confounded torrent of ironmongery that
half-stunned me. The laughter over, I was assisted to rise, and having
drank about a pint of vinegar, and had my face and temples washed in
strong whiskey punch--the allocation of the fluids being mistaken, I
learned that our host, the high sheriff, was a celebrated tin and iron
man, and that his salles de reception were no other than his magazine of
metals, and that to conceal the well filled shelves from the gaze of his
aristocratic guests, they were clothed in the manner related; which my
unhappy head, by some misfortune, displaced, and thus brought on a
calamity scarcely less afflicting to him than to myself. I should
scarcely have stopped to mention this here, were it not that Mary Anne's
gentle nursing of me in my misery went far to complete what her
fascination had begun; and although she could not help laughing at the
occurrence, I forgave her readily for her kindness.

"Remember," said I, trying to ogle through a black eye, painted by the
angle of a register grate--"remember, Mary Anne, I am to see you home."

"Oh! dear, sir, sure I don't know how you can manage it--"

Here Mark Anthony's entrance cut short this speech, for he came to
declare that some of the officers had taken his coach, and was, as might
be supposed, in a towering passion.

"If, sir," said I, with an air of the most balmy courtesy--"If I can be
of any use in assisting you to see your friends home--"

"Ah! then, ye'r a nice looking article to see ladies home. I wish you
seen yourself this minute," said he.

As I felt it would be no breach of the unities--time, place, and every
thing considered--to smash his skull, I should certainly have proceeded
to do so, had not a look of the most imploring kind from Mary Anne
restrained