on inside of me. You may depend upon it that there are things going on
inside of us that we understand mighty little about."

"Jupiter! you make my flesh creep!" cried Tristram. "And while you sat
in your hack, watching the play, as you call it, the other man marched
in and bagged your sixty thousand dollars?"

"I have not the least idea. I hope so, poor devil! but I never found
out. We pulled up in front of the place I was going to in Wall Street,
but I sat still in the carriage, and at last the driver scrambled down
off his seat to see whether his carriage had not turned into a hearse.
I couldn't have got out, any more than if I had been a corpse. What was
the matter with me? Momentary idiocy, you'll say. What I wanted to get
out of was Wall Street. I told the man to drive down to the Brooklyn
ferry and to cross over. When we were over, I told him to drive me out
into the country. As I had told him originally to drive for dear life
down town, I suppose he thought me insane. Perhaps I was, but in that
case I am insane still. I spent the morning looking at the first green
leaves on Long Island. I was sick of business; I wanted to throw it all
up and break off short; I had money enough, or if I hadn't I ought to
have. I seemed to feel a new man inside my old skin, and I longed for
a new world. When you want a thing so very badly you had better treat
yourself to it. I didn't understand the matter, not in the least; but
I gave the old horse the bridle and let him find his way. As soon as I
could get out of the game I sailed for Europe. That is how I come to be
sitting here."

"You ought to have bought up that hack," said Tristram; "it isn't a
safe vehicle to have about. And you have really sold out, then; you have
retired from business?"