was wet to the skin and in no
amiable humor; and not being able to find bell-pull or knocker, or even
a door, I belabored the side of the house with my heavy walking-stick.
In a minute or two I saw a light flickering somewhere aloft, then I
heard the sound of a window opening, followed by an exclamation of
disgust as a blast of wind extinguished the candle which had given me
an instantaneous picture _en silhouette_ of a man leaning out of a
casement.

"I say, what do you want, down there?" inquired an unprepossessing
voice.

"I want to come in; I want a supper, and a bed, and numberless things."

"This is n't no time of night to go rousing honest folks out of their
sleep. Who are you, anyway?"

The question, superficially considered, was a very simple one, and I, of
all people in the world, ought to have been able to answer it off-hand;
but it staggered me. Strangely enough, there came drifting across my
memory the lettering on the back of a metaphysical work which I had
seen years before on a shelf in the Astor Library. Owing to an
unpremeditatedly funny collocation of title and author, the lettering
read as follows: "Who am I? Jones." Evidently it had puzzled Jones to
know who he was, or he would n't have written a book about it, and come
to so lame and impotent a conclusion. It certainly puzzled me at that
instant to define my identity. "Thirty years ago," I reflected, "I was
nothing; fifty years hence I shall be nothing again, humanly speaking.
In the mean time, who am I, sure-enough?" It had never before occurred
to me what an indefinite article I was. I wish it had not occurred to
me then. Standing there in the rain and darkness, I wrestled vainly with
the problem, and was constrained to fall back upon a Yankee expedient.

"Isn't this a hotel?" I asked finally,

"Well, it is a sort of hotel," said the voice, doubtfully. My hesitation
and prevarication had apparently not inspired my interlocutor with
confidence in me.

"Then let me in. I have just driven over from K------ in this infernal
rain. I am wet through and through."

"But what do you want here, at the Corners? What's your business? People
don't come here, leastways in the middle of the night."

"It is n't in the middle of the night," I returned, incensed. "I come
on business connected with the new road. I 'm the superintendent of the
works."

"Oh!"

"And if you don't open the door at once, I'll raise the whole
neighborhood--and then go to t