It seemed to me that the management, in making this order, had clearly
gone beyond their legal right; and, under ordinary circumstances, I
should have disputed it. Being present, however, more in the
character of a guest than in that of a patron, I hardly like to make a
disturbance; and so I sat down and meekly prepared to comply with the
demand.

I had never before known that the human leg did unscrew. I had always
thought it was a fixture. But the man showed me how to undo them, and
I found that they came off quite easily.

The discovery did not surprise me any more than the original request
that I should take them off had done. Nothing does surprise one in a
dream.

I dreamed once that I was going to be hanged; but I was not at all
surprised about it. Nobody was. My relations came to see me off, I
thought, and to wish me "Good-by!" They all came, and were all very
pleasant; but they were not in the least astonished--not one of them.
Everybody appeared to regard the coming tragedy as one of the
most-naturally-to-be-expected things in the world.

They bore the calamity, besides, with an amount of stoicism that would
have done credit to a Spartan father. There was no fuss, no scene.
On the contrary, an atmosphere of mild cheerfulness prevailed.

Yet they were very kind. Somebody--an uncle, I think--left me a
packet of sandwiches and a little something in a flask, in case, as he
said, I should feel peckish on the scaffold.