earisome to the reader to have his attention suddenly drawn
from the topic before him, and his interest solicited for those he has
well-nigh forgotten, let me add that it is almost as bad for the writer,
who is obliged to hasten hither and thither, and, like a huntsman with a
straggling pack, to urge on the tardy, correct the loiterer, and repress
the eager.

When we parted with Annesley Beecher, he was in sore trouble and anxiety
of mind; a conviction was on him that he was "squared," "nobbled,"
"crossed," "potted," or something to the like intent and with a like
euphonious designation. "The Count and Spicer were conspiring to put him
in a hole!" As if any "hole" could be as dark, as hopeless, and as deep
as the dreary pitfall of his own helpless nature!

His only resource seemed flight; to break cover at once and run for it,
appeared the solitary solution of the difficulty. There was many a spot
in the map of Europe which offered a sanctuary against Grog Davis. But
what if Grog were to set the law in motion, where should he seek refuge
then? Some one had once mentioned to him a country with which no treaty
connected us with regard to criminals. It began, if he remembered
aright, with an S; was it Sardinia or Sweden or Spain or Sicily or
Switzerland? It was surely one of them, but which? "What a mass of
rubbish, to be sure," thought he, "they crammed me with at Rugby, but
not one solitary particle of what one could call useful learning! See
now, for instance, what benefit a bit of geography might be to me!" And
he rambled on in his mind, concocting an educational scheme which would
really fit a man for the wear and tear of life.

It was thus reflecting he entered the inn and mounted to his room; his
clothes lay scattered about, drawers were crammed with his wearables,
and the table covered with a toilet equipage, costly, and not yet paid
for. Who was to pack all these? Who was to make up that one portmanteau
which would suffice for flight, including all the indispensable and
rejecting the superfluous? There is a case recorded of a Frenchman who
was diverted from his resolve on suicide by discovering that his pistols
were not loaded, and, incredible as it may seem, Beecher was deterred
from his journey by the thought of how he was to pack his trunk; He had
never done so much for himself since he was born, and he did n't
think he could do it; at all events, he wasn't going to try. Certain
superstitious people are impre