ineffable dignity to bed.

Meantime the devil, to whom the copy was entrusted, ran up stairs to
his 'case,' in an unutterable hurry, and forthwith made a
commencement at 'setting' the MS. 'up.'

In the first place, of course, -- as the opening word was 'So,' -- he
made a plunge into the capital S hole and came out in triumph with a
capital S. Elated by this success, he immediately threw himself upon
the little-o box with a blindfold impetuosity -- but who shall
describe his horror when his fingers came up without the anticipated
letter in their clutch? who shall paint his astonishment and rage at
perceiving, as he rubbed his knuckles, that he had been only thumping
them to no purpose, against the bottom of an empty box. Not a single
little-o was in the little-o hole; and, glancing fearfully at the
capital-O partition, he found that to his extreme terror, in a
precisely similar predicament. Awe -- stricken, his first impulse was
to rush to the foreman.

'Sir!' said he, gasping for breath, 'I can't never set up nothing
without no o's.'

'What do you mean by that?' growled the foreman, who was in a very
ill humor at being kept so late.

'Why, sir, there beant an o in the office, neither a big un nor a
little un!'

'What -- what the d-l has become of all that were in the case?'