come and peer at me furtively through the
glass-doors which connected the room I was in,
with that in which he was. Once, too, I heard
him go out, and I felt sure that he had retired
to the stables, to examine more minutely the
value of my horse and carriage.

I took it into my head that my landlord was a
desperate rogue; that his business was not sufficient
to support him; that he had remarked that
I was in possession of a very valuable horse, a
carriage which would fetch something, and a quantity
of luggage in which there were probably articles
of price. I had other things of worth about my
person, including a sum of money, without which
I could not be travelling about, as he saw me,
from place to place.

While my mind was amusing itself with
these cheerful reflections, a little girl, of about
twelve years old, entered the room through the
glass-doors, and, after honouring me with a long
stare, went to the cupboard at the other end of
the apartment, and, opening it with a bunch of
keys which she brought with her in her hand,
took out a small white paper packet, about four
inches square, and retired with it by the way
by which she had entered; still staring at me so
diligently that, from want of proper attention to
where she was going, she got (I am happy to
state) a severe bump against the door as she
passed through it. She was a horrid little girl
this, with eyes that in shirking the necessity
of looking straight at anybody or anything, had
got at last to look only at her nose—finding it,
probably, as bad a nose as could be met with,
and therefore a congenial companion. She had,
moreover, frizzy and fluey hair, was excessively
dirty, and had a slow crab-like way of going
along without looking at what she was about,
which was very noisome and detestable.

It was not long before this young lady
reappeared, bearing in her hand a plate containing
the omelette, which she placed upon the table
without going through the previous form of
laying a cloth. She next cut an immense piece
of bread from a loaf shaped like a ring, and,
having clapped this also down upon the dirtiest
part of the table, and having further favoured
me with a wiped knife and fork, disappeared
once more. She disappeared to fetch the wine.
When this had been brought, and some water,
the preparations for my feast were considered
complete, and I was left to enjoy it alone.

I must not omit to mention that the horrid
waiting-maid appeared to excite as strong an
antipathy in the breast of my little dog as that
which my landlord himself had stirred up; and,
I am happy to say, that as the child left the
room I was obliged to interfere, to prevent Nelly
from harassing her retreating calves.

Gentlemen, an experienced traveller soon
learns that he must eat to support nature:
closing his eyes, nose, and ears to all
suggestions. I set to work, then, at the omelette
with energy, and at the tough sour bread with
good will, and had swallowed half a tumbler of
wine and water, when a thought suddenly
occurred to me which caused me to set the glass
down upon the table. I had no sooner done
this, than I raised it again to my lips, took a
fresh sip, rolled the liquid about in my mouth
two or three times, and spat it out upon the
floor. But I uttered, as I did so, in an audible
tone, the monosyllable " Pooh!"

"Pooh! Nelly," I said, looking down at my
dog, who was watching me intensely with
her head on one side—"pooh! Nelly," I
repeated, "what frantic and inconceivable
nonsense!"

And what was it that I thus stigmatised?
What was it that had given me pause in the
middle of my draught? What thought was it
that caused me to set down my glass with half
its contents remaining in it? It was a suspicion,
driven straight and swift as an arrow into the
innermost recesses of my soul, that the wine I
had just been drinking, and which, contrary to my
custom, I had mingled with water, was drugged!

There are some thoughts which, like noxious
insects, come buzzing back into one's mind as
often as we repulse them. We confute them in
argument, prove them illogical, leave them not
a leg to stand upon, and yet there they are the
next moment as brisk as bees, and stronger on
their pins than ever. It was just such a thought
as this with which I had now to deal. It was
well to say "Pooh!" it was well to remind
myself that this was the nineteenth century,
that I was not acting a part in a French
melodrama, that such things as I was thinking of
were only known in romances; it was well to
argue that to set a respectable man down as a
murderer, because he had peculiar coloured eyes
and a scar upon his cheek; were ridiculous
things to do. There seemed to be two separate
parties within me: one possessed of great powers
of argument and a cool judgment: the other, an
irrational or opposition party, whose chief force
consisted in a system of dogged assertion, which
all the arguments of the rational party were
insufficient to put down.

It was not long before an additional force
was imparted to the tactics of the irrational
party, by certain symptoms which began to
develop themselves in my internal organisation,
and which seemed favourable to the
view of the case I was so anxious to refute.
In spite of all my efforts to the contrary, I
could not help feeling that some very
remarkable sensations were slowly and gradually
stealing over me. First of all, I began to
find that I was a little at fault in my system
of calculating distances: so that when I took
up any object and attempted to replace it on
the table, I either brought it into contact with
that article of furniture with a crash, in
consequence of conceiving it to be lower than
it was; or else, imagining that the table was
several inches nearer to the ceiling than was
the case, I abandoned whatever I held in my
hand sooner than I should, and found that
I was confiding it to space again, my
head felt light upon my shoulders, there was a
slight tingling in my hands, and a sense that
they, as well as my feet (which were very cold),