y when he jumps into his cold-sheeted bed on a winter's night,
a process which makes his legs warm the upper part of his body, and
_vice versa_. It was moderately successful. If I could have wrung the
water out of my clothes, it might have been wholly so. Still, matters
began to look more cheerful, and I was about to drop off into a doze,
when at the far end of the cavern, where all had hitherto been black
as night, there suddenly burst forth a tremendous flood of light.

"Humph!" thought I, as the rays pierced through the blackness of the
cavern even to where I lay shivering. "I'm in for it now. In all
probability I have stumbled upon a bandits' cave."

Pleasing visions of the ways of bandits began to flit through my mind.

"In all likelihood," thought I, "there are seventeen of them. As I
have read my fiction, there are invariably seventeen bandits to a
band. It's like sixteen ounces to the pound, or three feet to the
yard, or fifty-three cents to the dollar. It never varies. What hope
have I to escape unharmed from seventeen bandits, even though five of
them are discontented--as is always the case in books--and are ready
to betray their chief to the enemy? I am the enemy, of course, but
I'll be hanged if I wish the chief betrayed into my hands. He could
probably thrash me single-handed. My hands are full anyhow, whether I
get the chief or not."

[Illustration: A DREAM OF BRIGANDAGE]

My heart sank into my boots; but as these were very wet, it promptly
returned to my throat, where it had rested ever since Hippopopolis had
deserted me. My heart is a very sane sort of an organ. I gazed towards
the light intently, expecting to see dark figures of murderous mould
loom up before me, but in this I was agreeably disappointed. Nothing
of the sort happened, and I grew easier in my mind, although my
curiosity was by no means appeased.

"I know what I will do," I said to myself. "I'll make friends with the
chief himself. That's the best plan. If he is responsive, my family
will be spared the necessity of receiving one of my ears by mail with
a delicate request for $20,000 ransom, accompanied by a P. S.
enclosing the other ear to emphasize the importance of the
complication."

By way of diversion, let me say here that, while slicing off the
victim's ear is a staple situation among novelists who write of
bandits, in all my experience with bandits--and I have known a
thousand, most of 'em in Wall Street--I have never known