Without despairing, however, I undertook the siege of a less
implacable heart. The fates were again propitious for a brief
period; but again a trivial incident interfered. Meeting my
betrothed in an avenue thronged with the _élite_ of the city, I was
hastening to greet her with one of my best considered bows, when a
small particle of some foreign matter, lodging in the corner of my
eye, rendered me, for the moment, completely blind. Before I could
recover my sight, the lady of my love had disappeared - irreparably
affronted at what she chose to consider my premeditated rudeness in
passing her by ungreeted. While I stood bewildered at the suddenness
of this accident, (which might have happened, nevertheless, to any
one under the sun), and while I still continued incapable of sight, I
was accosted by the Angel of the Odd, who proffered me his aid with a
civility which I had no reason to expect. He examined my disordered
eye with much gentleness and skill, informed me that I had a drop in
it, and (whatever a "drop" was) took it out, and afforded me relief.

I now considered it high time to die, (since fortune had so
determined to persecute me,) and accordingly made my way to the
nearest river. Here, divesting myself of my clothes, (for there is
no reason why we cannot die as we were born), I threw myself headlong
into the current; the sole witness of my fate being a solitary crow
that had been seduced into the eating of brandy-saturated corn, and
so had staggered away from his fellows. No sooner had I entered the
water than this bird took it into its head to fly away with the most
indispensable portion of my apparel. Postponing, therefore, for the
present, my suicidal design, I just slipped my nether extremities
into the sleeves of my coat, and betook myself to a pursuit of the
felon with all the nimbleness which the case required and its
circumstances would admit. But my evil destiny attended me still. As