How strange life is!

To think of all these people so eager and anxious to catch the
steamer, and some of them running to catch it, and so fearful that
they might miss it,--the morning of a steamboat accident. And the
captain blowing his whistle, and warning them so severely that he
would leave them behind,--leave them out of the accident! And
everybody crowding so eagerly to be in the accident.

Perhaps life is like that all through.

Strangest of all to think, in a case like this, of the people who
were left behind, or in some way or other prevented from going, and
always afterwards told of how they had escaped being on board the
Mariposa Belle that day!

Some of the instances were certainly extraordinary. Nivens, the
lawyer, escaped from being there merely by the fact that he was away
in the city.

Towers, the tailor, only escaped owing to the fact that, not
intending to go on the excursion he had stayed in bed till eight
o'clock and so had not gone. He narrated afterwards that waking up
that morning at half-past five, he had thought of the excursion and
for some unaccountable reason had felt glad that he was not going.


The case of Yodel, the auctioneer, was even more inscrutable. He had
been to the Oddfellows' excursion on the train the week before and to