soldier and the croupier—the latter having
been summoned to show the way. They led
me along some passages and up a short flight
of stairs into the bedroom which I was to
occupy. The ex-brave shook me warmly by
the hand; proposed that we should breakfast
together the next morning; and then,
followed by the croupier, left me for the night.

I ran to the wash-hand-stand; drank some
of the water in my jug; poured the rest out,
and plunged my face into it—then sat down
in a chair, and tried to compose myself. I
soon felt better. The change for my lungs,
from the fetid atmosphere of the gambling-
room to the cool air of the apartment I
now occupied; the almost equally refreshing
change for my eyes, from the glaring
gaslights of the "Salon " to the dim, quiet flicker
of one bed-room candle; aided wonderfully
the restorative effects of cold water. The
giddiness left me, and I began to feel a little
like a reasonable being again. My first
thought was of the risk of sleeping all night
in a gambling-house; my second, of the still
greater risk of trying to get out after the
house was closed, and of going home alone at
night, through the streets of Paris, with a
large sum of money about me. I had slept
in worse places than this, in the course of my
travels; so I determined to lock, bolt, and
barricade my door.

Accordingly, I secured myself against all
intrusion; looked under the bed, and into
the cupboard; tried the fastening of the
window; and then, satisfied that I had taken
every proper precaution, pulled off my upper
clothing, put my light, which was a dim one,
on the hearth among a feathery litter of wood
ashes: and got into bed, with the handkerchief
full of money under my pillow.

I soon felt, not only that I could not go to
sleep, but that I could not even close my
eyes. I was wide awake, and in a high fever.
Every nerve in my body trembled—every one
of my senses seemed to be preternaturally
sharpened. I tossed, and rolled, and tried
every kind of position, and perseveringly
sought out the cold corners of the bed, and
all to no purpose. Now, I thrust my arms
over the clothes; now, I poked them under
the clothes; now, I violently shot my legs
straight out, down to the bottom of the bed;
now, I convulsively coiled them up as near
my chin as they would go; now, I shook out
my crumpled pillow, changed it to the cool
side, patted it flat, and lay down quietly
on my back; now, I fiercely doubled it in
two, set it up on end, thrust it against the
board of the bed, and tried a sitting posture.
Every effort was in vain; I groaned with
vexation, as I felt that I was in for a sleepless
night.

What could I do ? I had no book to
read. And yet, unless I found out some
method of diverting my mind, I felt certain
that I was in the condition to imagine all
sorts of horrors; to rack my brains with
forebodings of every possible and impossible
danger; in short, to pass the night in suffering
all conceivable varieties of nervous terror.
I raised myself on my elbow, and looked
about the room—which was brightened by
a lovely moonlight pouring straight through
the window—to see if it contained any pictures
or ornaments, that I could at all clearly
distinguish. While my eyes wandered from
wall to wall, a remembrance of Le Maistre's
delightful little book, " Voyage autour de
Ma Chambre," occurred to me. I resolved
to imitate the French author, and find
occupation and amusement enough to relieve the
tedium of my wakefulness, by making a
mental inventory of every article of furniture
I could see, and by following up to their sources
the multitude of associations which even a
chair, a table, or a wash-hand-stand, may be
made to call forth.

In the nervous unsettled state of my mind
at that moment, I found it much easier to
make my proposed inventory, than to make
my proposed reflections, and soon gave up
all hope of thinking in Le Maistre's fanciful
track—or, indeed, thinking at all. I looked
about the room at the different articles of
furniture, and did nothing more. There was,
first, the bed I was lying in—a four-post bed,
of all things in the world to meet with in Paris!
—yes, a thorough clumsy British four-poster,
with the regular top lined with chintz—the
regular fringed valance all round— the regular
stifling, unwholesome curtains, which I
remembered having mechanically drawn back
against the posts, without particularly noticing
the bed when I first got into the room. Then,
there was the marble-topped wash-hand-stand,
from which the water I had spilt, in my hurry
to pour it out, was still dripping, slowly and
more slowly, on to the brick floor. Then, two
small chairs, with my coat, waistcoat, and
trousers flung on them. Then, a large elbow
chair covered with dirty-white dimity: with
my cravat and shirt-collar thrown over the
back. Then, a chest of drawers, with two of
the brass handles off, and a tawdry, broken
china inkstand placed on it by way of ornament
for the top. Then, the dressing-table,
adorned by a very small looking-glass, and a
very large pincushion. Then, the window—
an unusually large window. Then, a dark
old picture, which the feeble candle dimly
showed me. It was the picture of a fellow
in a high Spanish hat, crowned with a plume
of towering feathers. A swarthy sinister
ruffian, looking upward; shading his eyes
with his hand, and looking intently upward—
it might be at some tall gallows at which he
was going to be hanged. At any rate he had
the appearance of thoroughly deserving it.

This picture put a kind of constraint upon
me to look upward too—at the top of the bed.
It was a gloomy and not an interesting object,
and I looked back at the picture. I counted
the feathers in the man's hat; they stood
out in relief; three, white; two, green. I