up and yelled in stentorian voice:

'Leave my room! How dare you answer the waiter's bell? Send me the
waiter and clear out, every one of you!' and, with a sweeping wave of my
hand, I stalked towards the door. Reader, did you ever see the sun chase
a big cloud right off a green field, and, with no respite, drive it
headlong away over beyond the horizon? Such was the rapid departure of
my stupefied retainers. On reaching the door, I slammed it to with a
violence that echoed through the hushed and palsied house.

Oh the benefit of a good slam--not a push--nor a quick shut--nor even a
bump, all of which show still a want of firmness and decision--but a
good old-fashioned 'bang' as though it had got into your throat and you
could'nt breathe--that life depended on shutting out a flash of
lightning and you hadn't time to wait--that the harder you impelled it
against the doorway the sooner would end fast fleeting agony--that the
nearer you got to what might be called an _explosive shut_: the more
complete would be your safety, that if all your concentrated passion
could be, not flung, (that is too weak) but hurled at that one partition
a vacuum might be made in your room towards which good impulses might be
drawn inversely. Many a good natured man who has been cornered by
injustice has slammed off his anger, and is ready to forgive, but not
give up. There is a dignity in this rapid developement of muscular power
which admits of no surrender--the gauntlet has been thrown down, the
chip has been knocked off the shoulder, the black flag is hoisted and
skull and bones stand out in bold relief. There may be a calm, the wind
may die out, but the monster waves once lashed up to a Titanic power
move on of their own accord, and wash away the very vestige of
resistance. Asking to _be_ forgiven after slamming a door is like
touching off a Rodman gun, and then calling out to the fort in front to
'look out' 'take care!' 'do get out of the way.' A first class slam is
cumulative long after the noise has ceased--the nerves go on
slamming--the valves of the heart flap to and from--the tympanum roils a
revelrie to all the shattered senses, the offender slammed at, at once
subsides from rage to fear; the mental barometer falls--and
apprehension--the requiescat--is a don't know what is coming next. A
bona fide, abandoned slam is a Domestic Earthquake.

I next sat down on my Mexican chair, and waited for the rapid hatching
of the egg. A register