pushed me over a table, and forced me to engage in a furious struggle, exceedingly awkward by reason of the darkness and the extraordinary amount of furniture.  A tremendous punch in the side of the head upset me and made me lose my temper.  Rising in a rage, I grappled some man, tripped up his heels, got on his chest, and never left off belaboring him until I felt pretty sure that he would keep quiet during the rest of the soiree.  I hope sincerely that this suffering individual was Mr. John M. Riley; but, from the rotundity of stomach which I bestrode, I very much fear that it was the Doctor.

All this while the house resounded with outcries of, “Who’s there?” “What’s the matter?” “Father!” “Henry!” “Jenny!” “Maria!” “Thieves!” “Murder!” “Police!” and so forth.  Of course I did not feel disposed to tell who was there; and in actual fact I could not have explained what was the matter.  Accordingly I left all these inquisitive people unsatisfied, and busied myself solely with my fallen antagonist.  Quitting him at last in a state of quiescence, I knocked over a person who had been attacking me in the rear, and then blundered into a passage, which I suppose to have been the front-hall, just as a light glimmered up in the rooms behind me.  It gives one a very odd sensation to tread on a prostrate body, not knowing whether it is dead or alive, whether it is a man or a woman.  I had that sensation in ascending a stairway which seemed to be the only egress from the aforesaid passage.  The individual made no movement, and I did not stop to count his or her pulses.  Without feeling at all disposed to take my oath on the matter, I rather suspect that a negro servant-girl had fainted away there in the act of trying to run off in her nightgown.  Upstairs I tumbled, resolved to get upon the roof and slide down the lightning-rod, or else jump from a window.  Pushing open a door, which I fell against, I found myself in a pretty little bedroom lighted by a single candle, articles of female costume banging across chairs and scattered over dressing-tables, while on the floor, just as she had swooned in her terror, lay a blonde girl of nineteen or twenty, pale as marble, but beautiful.  Right through my alarm jarred a throb of mingled self-reproach and pity and admiration.  I tossed a pile of bedclothes over her, kissed the long light-brown hair which rippled on the straw matting, daguerreotyped the face on my memory with a glance, blew out the light, opened a window, and slipped out of it.  It is unpleasant to drop through darkness, not knowing how far you will fall, nor whether you will not alight on iron pickets.  Fortunately, I came down in a fresh flower-bed, with no unpleasant result, except a sensation of having nearly bitten my tongue off.  I had scarcely steadied myself on my feet, when a tall figure made a rush from some near ambuscade and seized me by the collar.  Supposing him to be one of our reserve force, I quietly suffered him to lead me forward, and was on the point of whispering my name, when my eye caught a glimmer of metal, and I knew that I was in the hands of a policeman.