Our adventurer was snugly seated in the little but select chamber
which had been given him in the house of Squire Hinkley. A table,
neatly spread with a cotton cover, stood before him: a travelling-portfolio
was opened beneath his hand, with a broad sheet of paper, already
well written over, and waiting nothing but his signature, and perhaps
the postscript. He was absorbed unusually in his cogitations, and
nibbled into bits the feathery end of the gray goosequill of which he
had been making such excellent use. While he meditates, unseeing,
we will use the liberty of an old acquaintance to scan the letter--for
such it is--which he has been writing. Perhaps we shall gather from
it some matters which it may concern us yet to know:--

"Dear Barnabas: The strangest adventure--positively the very
strangest--that ever happened to a son of Murkey's, will keep me
from the embraces of the brethren a few weeks longer. I am benighted,
bewildered, taken with art-magic, transmuted, TRANSMOGRIFIED, not
myself nor yet another, but, as they say in Mississippi, 'a sort
of betweenity.' Fancy me suddenly become a convert to the bluest
presbyterianism, as our late excellent brother Woodford became,
when he found that he could not get Moll Parkinson on any other
terms--and your guess will not be very far from the true one. I
am suddenly touched with conviction. I have seen a light on my way
from Tarsus. The scales have fallen from my eyes. I have seen the
wickedness of my ways, and yours too, you dog; and, having resolved
on my own repentance, I am taking lessons which shall enable me to
effect yours. Precious deal of salt will it need for that! Salt river
will fall, while its value rises. But the glory of the thing--think
of that, my boy! What a triumph it will be to revolutionize
Murkey's!--to turnout the drinkers and smokers, and money-changers;