had gone to a
room in another part of the hotel, but the family of amiable strangers
were fast asleep in the antechamber. They had supped heartily as I was
assured, and were now indulging in a happy but temporary oblivion--to
use an improved expression--of all their wrongs. Satisfied with this
state of things, I now sought my own pillow, or, according to a favorite
phrase of Mr. Noah Poke, I also "turned in."

CHAPTER IX. THE COMMENCEMENT OF WONDERS, WHICH ARE THE MORE
EXTRAORDINARY ON ACCOUNT OF THEIR TRUTH.

I dare say my head had been on the pillow fully an hour before sleep
closed my eyes. During this time I had abundant occasion to understand
the activity of what are called the "busy thoughts." Mine were feverish,
glowing, and restless. They wandered over a wild field; one that
included Anna, with her beauty, her mild truth, her womanly softness,
and her womanly cruelty; Captain Poke and his peculiar opinions; the
amiable family of quadrupeds and their wounded sensibilities; the
excellences of the social-stake system; and, in short, most of that
which I had seen and heard during the last four-and-twenty hours. When
sleep did tardily arrive, it overtook me at the very moment that I
had inwardly vowed to forget my heartless mistress, and to devote
the remainder of my life to the promulgation of the doctrine of the
expansive-super-human-generalized-affection-principle, to the utter
exclusion of all narrow and selfish views, and in which I resolved to
associate myself with Mr. Poke, as with one who had seen a great deal of
this earth and its inhabitants, without narrowing down his sympathies in
favor of any one place or person in particular, Stunin'tun and himself
very properly excepted.

It was broad daylight when I awoke on the following morning. My spirits
were calmed by rest, and my nerves had been soothed by the balmy
freshness of the atmosphere. It appeared that my valet had entered and
admitted the morning air, and then had withdrawn as usual to await the
signal of the bell before he presumed to reappear. I lay many minutes
in delicious repose, enjoying the periodical return of life and reason,
bringing with it the pleasures of thought and its ten thousand agreeable
associations. The delightful reverie into which I was insensibly
dropping was, however, ere long arrested by low, murmuring, and, as I
thought, plaintive voices at no great distance from my own bed. Seating
myself erect, I listened intentl