e as well as I could, trying to hide
my exultation. The office burnt! Fine! Robinson's singed! Glorious!
I hurriedly packed my things and whispered to Beverly-Jones farewell
messages for the sleeping household. I never felt so jolly and facetious
in my life. I could feel that Beverly-Jones was admiring the spirit and
pluck with which I took my misfortune. Later on he would tell them all
about it.

The trap ready! Hurrah! Good-bye, old man! Hurrah! All right. I'll
telegraph. Right you are, good-bye. Hip, hip, hurrah! Here we are! Train
right on time. Just these two bags, porter, and there's a dollar for
you. What merry, merry fellows these darky porters are, anyway!

And so here I am in the train, safe bound for home and the summer quiet
of my club.

Well done for Robinson! I was afraid that it had missed fire, or that my
message to him had gone wrong. It was on the second day of my visit that
I sent word to him to invent an accident--something, anything--to call
me back. I thought the message had failed. I had lost hope. But it is
all right now, though he certainly pitched the note pretty high.

Of course I can't let the Beverly-Joneses know that it was a put-up job.
I must set fire to the office as soon as I get back. But it's worth it.
And I'll have to singe Robinson about the face and hands. But it's worth
that too!

VI. To Nature and Back Again

It was probably owing to the fact that my place of lodgment in New York
overlooked the waving trees of Central Park that I was consumed, all the
summer through, with a great longing for the woods. To me, as a lover of
Nature, the waving of a tree conveys thoughts which are never conveyed
to me except by seeing a tree wave.

This longing grew upon me. I became restless with it. In the daytime
I dreamed over my work. At night my sleep was broken and restless. At
times I would even wander forth, at night into the park, and there, deep
in the night shadow of the trees, imagine myself alone in the recesses
of the dark woods remote from the toil and fret of our distracted
civilization.

This increasing feeling culminated in the resolve which becomes the
subject of this narrative. The thought came to me suddenly one night. I
woke from my sleep with a plan fully matured in my mind. It was this:
I would, for one month, cast off all the travail and cares of civilized
life and become again the wild man of the woods that Nature made me. M
woods, somewhere in New England