"Good-night, good-night."

"Wait an instant. But how shall I--"

"... Now you understand?"

"Oh yes. Good-night."

"Good-night."

"_Good_-night."

After these exclamations, uttered with piercing distinctness, have been
exchanged, the belated revellers from some club or whist-party or an
evening at the theatre in town terminate their sweet sorrow at parting
by going their several ways to their different homes, where, no doubt,
on retiring to rest they sink at once into blameless slumber, ignorant
of the fact that for me they have murdered sleep.

I had gone to bed betimes, wornout with hard mental labor: I had hoped
for a night's repose to recruit my energies for the morrow. This sleep I
craved was no luxurious indulgence of pampered inclination, but my stock
in trade--my bone, my sinew, my heart's courage, my mental inspiration,
the immediate jewel of my soul.

Who steals my purse steals trash; 'tis something, nothing:
'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands;
But he that filches from me my NIGHT'S SLEEP
Robs me of that which not enriches him,
And makes me poor indeed.

But let me now repose again: tenderly entreated, softly courted, sleep
may return. There are many specifics for bringing slumber to mutinous
eyelids. Let me remember what they are.

_First._ To think of the wind blowing on a field of grain. Watch with
your mind's eye the long wavy undulations, the golden sheen which takes
the light. What a dreamy, exquisite rhythm! (Still, I don't sleep.)

_Second._ Repeat the multiplication-table backward, from twelve times
down to twice. (Hopeless, the only result being to render my
mathematical powers acutely, preternaturally awake, so that I begin to
estimate the magnitude of my summer expenses.)

_Third._ Try to decide where to spend the August vacation. I am thinking
of Lake George, the Saguenay, Sea Girt, the White Mountains, when all at
once I begin to yield drowsily to the influence of long conversations
about nothing which take possession of my mind--mere gibberish, strings
of words without sense. Thank Heaven, I am off! I am actually going to
sleep. _Not yet!_

Down the street comes a man with an accordion. He is playing "Annie
Laurie." Every now and then he strikes a wrong note. Excruciating agony!
Did he render it correctly it might blend with a romantic dream, but
when he insists on flatting persistently, as for bonnie Annie Laurie he
offers to lay him