king to the _Skiomachia_ as a last remedy. In this mood he
looked with considerable antipathy at his own shadow for several nights;
and it is not to be questioned, but that some hard battles would have
taken place between them, were it not for the cunning of the shadow,
which declined to fight him in any other position than with its back
to the wall. This occasioned him to pause, for the wall was a fearful
antagonist, inasmuch that it knew not when it was beaten; but there was
still an alternative left. He went to the garden one clear day about
noon, and hoped to have a bout with the shade, free from interruption.
Both approached, apparently eager for the combat, and resolved to
conquer or die, when a villanous cloud happening to intercept the light,
gave the shadow an opportunity of disappearing; and Neal found himself
once more without an opponent.

"It's aisy known," said Neal, "you haven't the blood in you, or you'd
come up to the scratch like a man."

He now saw that fate was against him, and that any further hostility
towards the shadow was only a tempting of Providence. He lost his
health, spirits, and everything but his courage. His countenance became
pale and peaceful looking; the bluster departed from him; his body
shrunk up like a withered parsnip. Thrice was he compelled to take in
his clothes, and thrice did he ascertain that much of his time would be
necessarily spent in pursuing his retreating person through the solitude
of his almost deserted garment.

God knows it is difficult to form a correct opinion upon a situation
so paradoxical as Neal's was. To be reduced to skin and bone by the
downright friendship of the world, was, as the sagacious reader will
admit, next to a miracle. We appeal to the conscience of any man who
finds himself without an enemy, whether he be not a greater skeleton
than the tailor; we will give him fifty guineas provided he can show
a calf to his leg. We know he could not; for the tailor had none, and
that was because he had not an enemy. No man in friendship with the
world ever has calves to his legs. To sum up all in a paradox of our
own invention, for which we claim the full credit of originality, we
now assert, that more men have risen in the world by the injury of their
enemies, than have risen by the kindness of their friends. You may take
this, reader, in any sense; apply it to hanging if you like, it is still
immutably and immovably true.

One day Neal sat cross-legge