old, and decrepit and in
ruins; for here, at the High Rock, was the original fountain of the
village. As if from the cover of one of these old and decaying
tenements came a person of venerable aspect, with a tray of glasses
fastened to the top of a staff, like a great caster of bottles on a
broomstick. As this person stood by the side of Andrew Waples, and
planted his staff on the top step of the stairs, his prolonged shadow,
falling in the valley, gave him the appearance of a gigantic Neptune,
with a trident in his hand.

"Hallo!" exclaimed Mr. Waples, "are you a town scavenger, to be up at
this time of the clock?"

The man replied, after a very curious and explosive sound of his lips,
like the extraction of a cork from a bottle, "No, sir; I'm only the
Great Dipper."

"Very good," resumed Mr. Waples. "Then, perhaps, you'll explain to me
a very great optical delusion, or tell me that I'm drunk. Do you see
our two shadows as they fall yonder on the ground, and amongst the
tree-tops? Now, if I have any eyes in my head, there is a stomach in
your shadow and no stomach whatever in mine."

"Quite right," answered the Great Dipper. "You are the mere rim of a
former stomach. Abdominally, you are defunct."

Andrew Waples put his hand instinctively where his stomach was
presumed to be, and he saw the hand of his shadow distinctly imitate
the motion, and repeat it through his empty centre.

"This is Sir William Johnson's night," remarked the Great Dipper. "We
have a large company of guests on this anniversary, and no gentleman
is admitted with a stomach, nor any lady with a character. My whole
force of dippers is on to-night, and I must be spry."

As the venerable man spoke, and ceased to speak, exploding before and
after each utterance, it occurred to Mr. Waples that his voice had a
sort of mineral-water gurgle, which was very refreshing to a thirsty
man's ears. He followed, therefore, down the flight of rickety stairs
and stood in the midst of a promenading party of many hundred people,
variously dressed and in the costumes of several generations.

The canopy or pavilion of the spring, which, like a fairy temple,
seemed to have been exhaled from in bubbles, was yet capped, as in the
broad light of day, by a gilded eagle, from whose beak was suspended a
bottle of the water, and no other light was shed upon the scene than
the silver and golden radiance emitted together from this bottle, as
if ten thousand infinitely sm