Then Mr. Fogg arose in wrath and went down to see about it.  He ascertained that the shutters were closed, as usual, and as he returned to bed he resolved that his aunt should leave the house for good in the morning, or he would.  However, he thought he might as well give the almanac-plan another trial; and setting the sheep in motion, he began to count.  This time he reached two hundred and forty, and would probably have got to sleep before the three hundredth sheep jumped, had not Mix’s new dog, in the next yard, suddenly become home-sick and begun to express his feelings in a series of prolonged and exasperating howls.

Mr. Fogg was indignant.  Neglecting the sheep, he leaped from bed and began to bombard Mix’s new dog with boots, soap-cups and every loose object he could lay his hands on.  He hit the animal at last with a plaster bust of Daniel Webster, and induced the dog to retreat to the stable and think about home in silence.

It seemed almost ridiculous to resume those sheep again, but he determined to give the almanac-man one more chance, and soon as they began to jump the fence he began to count, and after seeing the eighty-second sheep safely over he was gliding gently in the land of dreams, when Mrs. Fogg rolled out of bed and fell on the floor with such violence that she waked the baby and started it crying, while Mr. Fogg’s aunt came down stairs four steps at a time to ask if they felt that earthquake.

The situation was too awful for words.  Mr. Fogg regarded it for a minute with speechless indignation, and then, seizing a pillow, he went over to the sofa in the back sitting-room and lay down.

He fell asleep in ten minutes without the assistance of the almanac, but he dreamed all night that he was being butted around the equator by a Cotswold ram, and he woke in the morning with a terrific headache and a conviction that sheep are good enough for wool and chops, but not worth anything as a narcotic.

* * * * *

Mr. Fogg has a strong tendency to exaggeration in conversation, and he gave a striking illustration of this in a story that he related one day when I called at his house.  Fogg was telling me about an incident that occurred in a neighboring town a few days before, and this is the way he related it: 

“You see old Bradley over here is perfectly crazy on the subject of gases and the atmosphere and such things—­absolutely wild; and one day he was disputing with Green about how high up in the air life could be sustained, and Bradley said an animal could live about forty million miles above the earth if—­”

“Not forty millions, my dear,” interposed Mrs. Fogg; “only forty miles, he said.”

“Forty, was it?  Thank you.  Well, sir, old Green, you know, said that was ridiculous; and he said he’d bet Bradley a couple of hundred thousand dollars that life couldn’t be sustained half that way up, and so—­”