_innocent_ cause, and therefore neither morally nor judicially amenable to
punishment. From respecting Mr. Tims I came to hate him; and I vowed
internally, that, rather than be annihilated by this enlarged edition of
Daniel Lambert, I would pitch him over the window. Had I been a giant, I
am sure I would have done it on the spot. The giants of old, it is well
known, raised Pelion upon Ossa, in their efforts to scale the throne of
heaven; and tossed enormous mountains at the godhead of Jupiter himself.
Unfortunately for me, Mr. Tims was a mountain, and I was no giant.

I accordingly got up, and, pretending it was necessary that I should see
some person in the next street, abruptly left the room. Julia--I did not
expect it--saw me to the door, shook hands with me, and said she hoped I
would return to supper when my business was finished. Sweet girl! was it
possible she could prefer the Man-Mountain to me?

Away I went into the open air. I had no business whatever to perform: it
was mere fudge; and I resolved to go home as fast as I could.

But I did not go home. On the contrary, I kept strolling about from street
to street, sometimes thinking upon Julia, sometimes upon Mr. Tims. The
night was of the most melancholy description--a cold, cloudy, windy, rainy
December night. Not a soul was upon the streets excepting a solitary
straggler, returning hither and thither from an evening sermon, or an
occasional watchman gliding past with his lantern, like an incarnation of
the Will-o'-wisp. I strolled up and down for half an hour, wrapped in an
olive great-coat, and having a green silk umbrella over my head. It was
well I chanced to be so well fortified against the weather; for had it
been otherwise, I must have been drenched to the skin. Where I went I know
not, so deeply was my mind wound up in its various melancholy cogitations.
This, however, I do know, that, after striking against sundry lamp-posts,