My next move was to Bluffton, Wells county, Indiana, where I arranged to go into the practice of the law.  But here at Bluffton, as elsewhere, were the devil’s recruiting offices—­the saloons—­and the first night after I reached the town I got drunk.  I remained in Bluffton until I got over the debauch, which embraced a siege of the delirium tremens more horrible than that already described.  When I came to myself, I determined that I would go home.  I was without money; I had no friends in Bluffton, and but few clothes to my back, and it was over one hundred miles to my father’s, but I started on foot and walked the whole way.  I stayed quietly at home a few days, and then went to Howard and Clinton counties on business, which was to make some collections on notes for other parties.  While in Clinton county I engaged to teach a district school, and in order to begin at the time specified by the trustees, I returned home to get ready.  I started to return to Clinton county on Friday, so as to be there to open school on the following Monday.  I got off the train at Indianapolis, and went into one of the numerous lobbies of hell near the depot.  It was a week from that evening before I was sober enough to realize where I was, who I was, where I had come from, and whither I had started.  I could hardly believe it possible that I had fallen again, but there was no doubt of the fact.  I had been arrested and had pawned my trunk to get money to pay my fine.  To this day I don’t know why I was arrested, but for being drunk, I suppose.  I fled from the city, and walked thirty miles into the country, where I borrowed enough money of a friend to redeem my trunk.  I then started for my school.  Notwithstanding I was one week behind, the trustees were still expecting me, and on Monday morning, one week later than the time appointed at first, I opened school.  But I was so worn out and confused in my faculties that at noon I was forced to dismiss the school.  I hurried from the house to a small village in the neighborhood and there I got more liquor.  The next morning I left for home.  Such a condition of affairs was lamentable and damnable, but I was powerless to make it better.  I have often wondered what the people of that neighborhood thought when they found that I had taken a cargo of whisky and disappeared as mysteriously as I came.  If the young idea shot forth at all during that season among the children of that district it was directed by other hands than mine.  I never sent in a bill for the sixty-two and a half cents due me for that half day’s work.  If the good people of Clinton will consent to call the matter even, I will here and now relinquish every possible claim, right, or title to the aforesaid amount.  They have probably long since forgotten the school which was not taught, and the pedagogue who did not teach.  I arrived at home in course of time, and remained there a few days.