e at civil engineer, I 'll be blessed if I would n't like to see an
uncivil one!"

Mr. Sewell's growl, however, was worse than his bite--owing to his
lack of teeth probably--for he very good-naturedly set himself to work
preparing supper for me. After a slice of cold ham, and a warm punch,
to which my chilled condition gave a grateful flavor, I went to bed in a
distant chamber in a most amiable mood, feeling satisfied that Jones was
a donkey to bother himself about his identity.

When I awoke, the sun was several hours high. My bed faced a window, and
by raising myself on one elbow I could look out on what I expected would
be the main street. To my astonishment I beheld a lonely country
road winding up a sterile hill and disappearing over the ridge. In
a cornfield at the right of the road was a small private graveyard,
enclosed by a crumbling stonewall with a red gate. The only thing
suggestive of life was this little corner lot occupied by death. I got
out of bed and went to the other window. There I had an uninterrupted
view of twelve miles of open landscape, with Mount Agamenticus in the
purple distance. Not a house or a spire in sight. "Well," I exclaimed,
"Greenton does n't appear to be a very closely packed metropolis!" That
rival hotel with which I had threatened Mr. Sewell overnight was not a
deadly weapon, looking at it by daylight. "By Jove!" I reflected, "maybe
I 'm in the wrong place." But there, tacked against a panel of the
bedroom door, was a faded time-table dated Greenton, August 1, 1839.

I smiled all the time I was dressing, and went smiling down stairs,
where I found Mr. Sewell, assisted by one of the fair sex in the
first bloom of her eightieth year, serving breakfast for me on a small
table--in the bar-room!

"I overslept myself this morning," I remarked apologetically, "and I see
that I am putting you to some trouble. In future, if you will have me
called, I will take my meals at the usual _table de hote_."

"At the what?" said Mr. Sewell.

"I mean with the other boarders."

Mr. Sewell paused in the act of lifting a chop from the fire, and,
resting the point of his fork against the woodwork of the mantelpiece,
grinned from ear to ear.

"Bless you! there is n't any other boarders. There has n't been anybody
put up here sence--let me see--sence father-in-law died, and that was in
the fall of '40. To be sure, there 's Silas; _he_'s a regular boarder;
but I don't count him."

Mr. Sewell the