pair of small-clothes. Neal, it is true, undeceived him with some
trouble, but candidly admitted that he was not able to carry home
the money. It was difficult, indeed, for the poor tailor to bear
what he felt; it is true he bore it as long as he could; but at
length he became suicidal, and often had thoughts of "making his
own quietus with his bare bodkin." After many deliberations and
afflictions, he ultimately made the attempt; but, alas! he found
that the blood of the Malones refused to flow upon so ignominious
an occasion. So HE solved the phenomenon; although the truth was
that his blood was not "i' the vein" for it; none was to be had.
What then was to be done? He resolved to get rid of life by some
process, and the next that occurred to him was hanging. In a solemn
spirit he prepared a selvage, and suspended himself from the rafter
of his workshop. But here another disappointment awaited him, he
would not hang. Such was his want of gravity that his own weight
proved insufficient to occasion his death by mere suspension. His
third attempt was at drowning; but he was too light to sink; all
the elements, all his own energies, joined themselves, he thought,
in a wicked conspiracy to save his life. Having thus tried every
avenue to destruction, and failed in all, he felt like a man doomed
to live forever. Henceforward he shrank and shrivelled by slow
degrees, until in the course of time he became so attenuated that
the grossness of human vision could no longer reach him.

This, however, could not last always. Though still alive, he was
to all intents and purposes imperceptible. He could only now be
heard; he was reduced to a mere essence; the very echo of human
existence, vox etpraeterea nihil. It is true the schoolmaster asserted
that he occasionally caught passing glimpses of him; but that was
because he had been himself nearly spiritualised by affliction,