ed, at once gets his Smith & Wesson in
range. When the smoke has cleared away three shots are found to have
taken effect--two of them in a span of high-stepping horses attached
to the elegant turnout of old Mrs. P----. That estimable lady is
spilled into the third-story window of an establishment where sits our
old friend Hannah binding shoes. The shock so far upsets poor Hannah's
reason that she turns a blood-curdling somersault out upon an awning,
bounces back, and on her return trip carries away a swinging sign
and a barber's pole. These heavy articles strike on a copper
soda-fountain, which explodes with a fearful noise, and mortally
wounds a colored man uninsured against accident. (Full particulars for
the next twelve months in the insurance journals.) The gallant boys in
red flannel, assuming from the commotion that a fire must be under
way in the neighborhood, set the machine to work in a twinkling. The
leading hoseman in his hurry rams his bouquet into the fire-box, tries
to screw his silver trumpet on the end of the hose, and stands on his
stiff glazed hat to find out what kind of strategy is needed. Then
they proceed to drown out an ice-cream saloon on the wrong side of the
street.

Browne is happy. He climbs a lamppost, and sets to work taking notes
as fast as his pencil can fly. Somebody, mistaking his coat-tail
pockets for the post-office, drops in a set of public documents (it
is the last day of franking), which so interferes with Browne's
equilibrium that he falls over backward into an ash-barrel, after
getting out of which he finds it rests him to write with his pencil in
his teeth. At last order is restored, the thumb is repaired, and the
procession, getting untangled, moves off to the inspiriting strains of
"Ain't you glad," etc.

Browne mixes in two more scenes before lunch. In the afternoon there's
a balloon ascension, where everything goes up but the balloon; and
a croquet-party brim full of eccentricities. Browne picks up half a
dozen juvenile and domestic incidents, hardly worth alluding to, and
goes home, through a series of adventures, to find a tall, raw-boned
horse, a total stranger, walking over his flower-beds and occasionally
looking in at the windows. Browne's skirmishes around the animal (the
whole campaign together) cost him about thirty dollars.

I resign Danbury to Browne. Though there's a capital fellow there whom
I should like to see, I'd rather not go down there and pay taxes.