about the missing landlady or the
missing baby, and didn't want to, either. Once more the driver suggested
the pier, and we told him to drive us anywhere. It was now after dark,
and being wet and hungry, as well as devoid of wives and babies, we were
beginning to be reckless. All at once, a joyful cry sounded from a
passing cab. It was the voice of my wife, who was patrolling Folkestone
in the hope of meeting us. Our nightmare was over, and in a few more
minutes we were clasped in the arms of the baby--or, at any rate, we
would have been had she been old enough to learn the use of her arms. To
the unmarried man the experience may not seem quite so dreadful as it
did to me, but let a married man mislay a valuable baby, not to speak of
a wife and daughter, in a strange town on a stormy night, and he will
know how near he can come to having a nightmare without preliminary pork
and sleep.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: And tells of a prayer meeting.]

Once, when I was an undergraduate, a prayer-meeting was held in
somebody's room, which I attended. I do not recollect what was the
occasion of the holding of this meeting, but I do remember that it was a
particularly solemn one. There were about thirty of us in the room, and
the meeting had been in progress for about half-an-hour, when it
suddenly occurred to me that were someone to burst into a laugh, the
astonished expression of the others would be something worth seeing.
Then I thought how painful would be the feelings of the man who laughed,
and how he would be covered with shame and remorse. All at once an
irresistible desire to laugh came upon me. There was nothing whatever to
laugh at, and the mere idea of laughing in such a place filled me with
horror, but still the desire--a purely nervous one, of course--to break
out in a peal of laughter grew stronger and stronger. I bit my lips, and
tried to think of the most solemn and depressing subjects, but that
laugh could not be conjured in any such way; presently I knew that I was
smiling--a broad, complacent, luxurious smile. Just then, a man sitting
opposite to me saw my smile, and a look of cold horror spread over his
face. At this I laughed aloud, in a choking, timorous way, but loudly
enough to attract the attention of every one in the room. The mischief
was now done, and, in the estimation of my comrades, I was disgraced for
ever, as the man ought to be who insults pious people at their prayers