sed of a devil of a fever, so that my physician hath forbidden
me to be out of nights."

"Indeed," said Jonathan, whom, you may have observed, was of a very
easy disposition--"indeed, I shall be very glad to accompany thee to
thy lodgings. There is nothing I would like better than to serve any
friend of good Jeremiah Doolittle's."

And thereupon, and with great amity, the two walked off together, the
little one-eyed gentleman in black linking his arm confidingly into
that of Jonathan's, and tapping the pavement continually with his cane
as he trotted on at a great pace. He was very well acquainted with the
town (of which he was a citizen), and so interesting was his discourse
that they had gone a considerable distance before Jonathan observed
they were entering into a quarter darker and less frequented than that
which they had quitted. Tall brick houses stood upon either side,
between which stretched a narrow, crooked roadway, with a kennel
running down the centre.

In front of one of these houses--a tall and gloomy structure--our
hero's conductor stopped and, opening the door with a key, beckoned for
him to enter. Jonathan having complied, his new-found friend led the
way up a flight of steps, against which Jonathan's feet beat noisily in
the darkness, and at length, having ascended two stairways and having
reached a landing, he opened a door at the end of the passage and
ushered Jonathan into an apartment, unlighted, except for the
Moonshine, which, coming in through a partly open shutter, lay in a
brilliant patch of light upon the floor.

His conductor having struck a light with a flint and steel, our hero by
the illumination of a single candle presently discovered himself to be
in a bedchamber furnished with no small degree of comfort, and even
elegance, and having every appearance of a bachelor's chamber.

"You will pardon me," said his new acquaintance, "if I shut these
shutters and the window, for that devilish fever of which I spoke is of
such a sort that I must keep the night air even out from my room, or
else I shall be shaking the bones out of my joints and chattering the
teeth out of my head by to-morrow morning."

So saying he was as good as his word, and not only drew the shutters
to, but shot the heavy iron bolt into its place. Having accomplished
this he bade our hero to be seated, and placing before him some
exceedingly superior rum, together with some equally excellent tobacco,
they present