ome worsted,
and blown at a target through a tin tube. He placed the needle at the
wrong end of the tube, and drawing his breath strongly to puff the dart
forward with force, drew the needle into his throat. It entered the
lungs, and in a few days killed him."

Upon seeing this I fell into a great rage, without exactly knowing
why. "This thing," I exclaimed, "is a contemptible falsehood--a poor
hoax--the lees of the invention of some pitiable penny-a-liner--of some
wretched concoctor of accidents in Cocaigne. These fellows, knowing
the extravagant gullibility of the age, set their wits to work in the
imagination of improbable possibilities---of odd accidents, as they
term them; but to a reflecting intellect (like mine," I added, in
parenthesis, putting my forefinger unconsciously to the side of my
nose,) "to a contemplative understanding such as I myself possess, it
seems evident at once that the marvelous increase of late in these 'odd
accidents' is by far the oddest accident of all. For my own part,
I intend to believe nothing henceforward that has anything of the
'singular' about it."

"Mein Gott, den, vat a vool you bees for dat!" replied one of the most
remarkable voices I ever heard. At first I took it for a rumbling in my
ears--such as a man sometimes experiences when getting very drunk--but,
upon second thought, I considered the sound as more nearly resembling
that which proceeds from an empty barrel beaten with a big stick; and,
in fact, this I should have concluded it to be, but for the articulation
of the syllables and words. I am by no means naturally nervous, and the
very few glasses of Lafitte which I had sipped served to embolden me no
little, so that I felt nothing of trepidation, but merely uplifted my
eyes with a leisurely movement, and looked carefully around the room for
the intruder. I could not, however, perceive any one at all.

"Humph!" resumed the voice, as I continued my survey, "you mus pe so
dronk as de pig, den, for not zee me as I zit here at your zide."

Hereupon I bethought me of looking immediately before my nose, and
there, sure enough, confronting me at the table sat a personage
nondescript, although not altogether indescribable. His body was a
wine-pipe, or a rum-puncheon, or something of that character, and had a
truly Falstaffian air. In its nether extremity were inserted two kegs,
which seemed to answer all the purposes of legs. For arms there dangled
from the upper portion of