asant thrill, like that, perhaps, which drowning men feel, ran
through my frame. All became dark,--and the strong man dropped, like a
felled ox, senseless on the stage.

When consciousness returned I was lying flat on my back, and several
persons were bending over me.

"Keep down,--don't rise," some one said.

"What has happened?" I asked.

"Nothing,--only you were a little faint."

"Faint? A man who can lift a thousand pounds faint--at the sight of an
audience? Absurd! Let me rise."

And in spite of all opposition I rose, grasped my manuscript, walked to
the front of the stage, and resumed my lecture. Alas!

"Reaching above our nature does no good;
We must sink back into our own flesh and blood."

I had not proceeded far before I felt symptoms of a repetition of the
calamity; and lest I should be overtaken before I could retreat, I
stammered a few words of apology, and withdrew ingloriously from public
view. Fresh air and a draught of water, which some obliging friend had
dashed with _eau-de-vie_, soon restored me. But I took the advice of
friends and did not make a third attempt that evening.

The audience, had it been wholly composed of brothers and sisters, could
not have been more indulgent and considerate. One skeptical gentleman was
heard to say,--

"I don't believe he can lift nine hundred pounds."

And another added,--

"Nor I,--any more than that he can shoulder a barrel of flour."

"Or raise his body by the little finger of one hand," said another.

Whereupon a venerable citizen, a gentleman long known and respected as the
very soul of honor, truthfulness, and uprightness, came forward on the
stage before the audience, and with emphatic earnestness, and in a loud,
intrepid tone of voice, exclaimed,--

"Ladies and gentlemen,--The heat of the room was too much for the
lecturer; but he can easily do all the feats announced in the bills. _I've
seen him do them twenty times_."

The dear, but infatuated old gentleman! He had never seen me do anything
of the kind. He hardly knew me by sight. He thought only of coming to the
rescue of an unfortunate lecturer, prostrated on the very threshold of his
career; and a friendly hallucination made him for the moment really
believe what he said. His unpremeditated assertion must have been set down
by the recording angel on the same page with Uncle Toby's oath, and then
obliterated in the same manner.

Ten days after the above-mentioned catastrophe, ha