breaking at a touch, fine long pieces hopelessly tangled together, so
that not even an end is visible. The more you twitch at the loops, the
more desperate is the snarl. Poor mortal! Your pride gives way before
the urgency of haste. You send off your nice packet miserably tied
together by two kinds of twine.

All the rest of the day you are tormented by a superfluity of the very
thing you needed so much. It was impossible to get it when you wanted
it; but now it is pertinaciously in your way when you do _not_ want
it. You almost break your neck tripping over a long, firm cord, which
proves to be a pair of reins left hanging on a chair by some careless
urchin. The carpet and furniture are strewed with long, straggling
pieces of packthread. You find a white end dangling conspicuously from
your waistcoat pocket. As you walk the streets you see twine flying
from fences, or lying useless on the sidewalk, black with dust and
age. To crown the whole, a friend comes with a piece of twine
extending across two rooms, and asks you to help him twist and double
it into a cord. It is a very entertaining process. You amuse yourself
with watching one little rough place that whirls swiftly round, stops
with a jerk, turns hesitatingly one side and the other, then, yielding
to a new impulse, flies round and round again till you are dizzy. You
look with great complacency at the tightening twist, now brought
_almost_ to perfection. You turn it carelessly in your fingers,
scarcely noticing its convulsive starts for freedom. Ah! your
imprudent friend, without any warning, gives it a final pull to
stretch it into shape. The twine slips from your grasp, springs away
across the room, curls itself into a succession of snarls and twisted
loops, and then lies motionless. Your friend looks thunderstruck. With
a hasty apology, you step forward and tightly clasp the recreant
end. You are in nervous expectation of dropping it again. Your fingers