may not be able, so soon as convenient, to -- to -- get yourself
drowned, or -- choked with a chicken-bone, or -- or hung, -- or --
bitten by a -- but stay! Now I think me of it, there are a couple of
very excellent bull-dogs in the yard -- fine fellows, I assure you --
savage, and all that -- indeed just the thing for your money --
they'll have you eaten up, auricula and all, in less than five
minutes (here's my watch!) -- and then only think of the sensations!
Here! I say -- Tom! -- Peter! -- Dick, you villain! -- let out those"
-- but as I was really in a great hurry, and had not another moment
to spare, I was reluctantly forced to expedite my departure, and
accordingly took leave at once -- somewhat more abruptly, I admit,
than strict courtesy would have otherwise allowed.

It was my primary object upon quitting Mr. Blackwood, to get into
some immediate difficulty, pursuant to his advice, and with this view
I spent the greater part of the day in wandering about Edinburgh,
seeking for desperate adventures -- adventures adequate to the
intensity of my feelings, and adapted to the vast character of the
article I intended to write. In this excursion I was attended by one
negro -- servant, Pompey, and my little lap-dog Diana, whom I had
brought with me from Philadelphia. It was not, however, until late in
the afternoon that I fully succeeded in my arduous undertaking. An
important event then happened of which the following Blackwood
article, in the tone heterogeneous, is the substance and result.

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A PREDICAMENT