th ago, Sir, one night."

"_Sapperment_, Ned! that was the time of the 'herb Pantagruelion'!--
Well, what were you doing on the canal at that hour?" asked Mac,
slyly.

"No, you needn't, now,--I see you wink at him,--honor bright. I'd
been up to town, to take a mess o' clams at Giberson's, with maybe a
sprinklin' of his apple-jack,--nothing else,--and I was on my way
home,--to Skillman's tavern at the _depot_, you know,--and I'd jest
stopped a piece, and was a-standing there, looking at the moon in the
water, when he tipped me over. I tell you, I was mad when I crawled
out wet as a rat; and if I'd ketched him then, you may depend upon
it, I'd 'a' given his jacket a precious warming. As I said, he run
off, but jest as I turned towards the tavern, I see him a-coming
back, kinder wild-like; so I slipped behind a lumber-pile, hoping he
might come over the bridge, so I could lay my fingers on him. The
moon was about its highest, so I could see his face, plain as day,--
white,--skim-milk warn't a circumstance to it,--and his eyes wide
open as they could stretch. I tell you, he was wild! He looked up and
down a bit, mumbled somethin' I couldn't make out, and then what do
you think that boy did? Why, he jumped in, clothes and all, bold as a
lion,--plainly to save me from drowning, and me all the time a-spyin'
at him from behind a lumber-pile! He was sarching for me, I knowed,
for he swum up and down jest about there for the space maybe of a
quarter of an hour. And when he give it up at last, and come out, he
kinder sunk down on the tow-path, and I heard him say plain enough,
though he only whispered it,--jest like a woman actor I see down to
York oncet, playin' in Guy something or other,--she was a sort of an
old gypsy devil,--says he, 'I am a murderer, then!' Thinks I, 'Sonny,
all but the murderer!' And as he stood up again, he 'peared to suffer
so, his face was so white, and his knees so shaky, that I says to
myself, 'Dan, you've carried the joke far enough.' So I sings out to
him, and comes out from behind the lumber-stack, but, Lord bless ye!
he jest peeped round over his shoulder oncet, gave a kind of chokin'
scream like, and put out up the road as if the Devil was after him. I
knowed it warn't no use to follow him, so I got on a dry shirt and
went to bed. The next day I went home, and I'd mighty near forgot all
about it, only today I came to see Dr. Thorne for somethin' to do my
cold good, and he wantin' to know how I ke