nd did not feel like getting out, I reeled into the kitchen and
picked up a shovelful of coals, which I lifted so near my mouth that I
scorched my hair and burnt my face, and, worse than all, singed the faint
suggestion of a mustache that was visible by the aid of a microscope, on my
upper lip. While I was engaged in lighting my cigar, a large dog--a tall,
lean, much-ribbed, lank and hungry-looking hound--went out to the sleigh,
and my friend induced him to accept passage with us; so when I got back to
my seat it was proposed that the hound should accompany us. I have often
wondered since if he was not heartily ashamed of being seen in our company
that day; but we made a martyr of him all the same.

We drove off with a succession of whoops and yells, and carried the hound
in front. Our first halt was at Falmouth, where we ordered oysters. The
room in which we sat at table was quite small, and a large stove whose
sides were red with heat made it uncomfortably hot--especially for us who
were already in a sultry state. I had not sat at the table a minute when I
fell from my chair against the stove. My leg struck a hinge of the door,
and as my friend was too much overcome to realize my condition, I lay there
until the hinge burnt a hole through the leg of my pantaloons and then into
the flesh. I carry a scar to-day in memory of that time, and the scar is
about three inches long. The burn was over half an inch in depth. God only
knows what might have been the final result had not assistance soon come in
the person of the owner of the house. He called for help, and as soon as it
arrived we were placed in our sleigh, and by a kind of instinct drove to
Fairview. It was dark by the time we got into Fairview, but we contrived
to get our horse within the stable and that unfortunate hound into a
corn-crib, in which durance he howled so vigorously that the wild winds
which whistled and shrieked around the barn could not be heard for him. His
complaining lasted all night, and I do not think any one within a mile
of the crib slept that night, my friend and myself excepted. Ay, we
slept--slept as I have so often slept since--a slumber as deep and
oblivious as death--a drunken sleep, from which we awoke to suffer hell's
tortures so justly merited by our conduct. I awoke with a throbbing, aching
heart, but by slow degrees did I become conscious that I had been somewhere
in a sleigh and done something either very desperate or very foolish, o