with unspeakable pleasure, all the greater by contrast with my former
terror of its approach by land. Onward and upward the noble animal
sailed, its head bent down almost between its knees, its fore-feet
thrown back, its hinder legs trailing to rear like the legs of a
soaring heron.

"At a height of forty or fifty feet, as fond recollection presents it
to view, it attained its zenith and appeared to remain an instant
stationary; then, tilting suddenly forward without altering the
relative position of its parts, it shot downward on a steeper and
steeper course with augmenting velocity, passed immediately above me
with a noise like the rush of a cannon shot and struck my poor uncle
almost squarely on the top of the head! So frightful was the impact
that not only the man's neck was broken, but the rope too; and the
body of the deceased, forced against the earth, was crushed to pulp
beneath the awful front of that meteoric sheep! The concussion
stopped all the clocks between Lone Hand and Dutch Dan's, and
Professor Davidson, a distinguished authority in matters seismic, who
happened to be in the vicinity, promptly explained that the vibrations
were from north to southwest.

"Altogether, I cannot help thinking that in point of artistic atrocity
my murder of Uncle William has seldom been excelled."



OIL OF DOG


My name is Boffer Bings. I was born of honest parents in one of the