"Heavens!" exclaimed John, stifling the note in
his hand and stalking tragically around the room.
"Can it be possible that I have nursed a frozen
viper? An ingrate? A wolf in sheep's clothing?
An orang-outang in gent's furnishings?"

"Was you calling me, sir?" asked a voice at the
door. It was the janitor.

"No!" thundered John; "Quit my sight! get out
of my way! No, no, Thompson, I don't mean
that," he called after him. "Here's a half-dollar
for you, and I want you to lock up the office, and
tell anybody that wants to see me that I've been
set upon, and sacked and assassinated in cold blood;
and I've fled to my father's in the country, and am
lying there in the convulsions of dissolution, babbling
of green fields and running brooks, and thirsting
for the life of every woman that comes in gunshot!"
And then, more like a confirmed invalid
than a man in the strength and pride of his prime,
he crept down into the street again, and thence back
to his hotel.

Dejectedly and painfully climbing to his room, he
encountered, on the landing above, a little woman
in a jaunty dusting-cap and a trim habit of crisp
muslin. He tried to evade her, but in vain. She
looked him squarely in the face--occasioning him