Relieved of Mr. Peasley, I naturally began thinking of my poor friend in the Flatbroke jail, and it occurred to me that something might happen to hasten the execution.  I knew the feeling of the country against him, and that many would be there from a distance who would naturally wish to get home before nightfall.  Nor could I help admitting to myself that five o’clock was an unreasonably late hour for a hanging.  Tortured with these fears, I unconsciously increased my pace with every step, until it was almost a run.  I stripped off my coat and flung it away, opened my collar, and unbuttoned my waistcoat.  And at last, puffing and steaming like a locomotive engine, I burst into a thin crowd of idlers on the outskirts of the town, and flourished the pardon crazily above my head, yelling, “Cut him down!—­cut him down!”

Then, as every one stared in blank amazement and nobody said anything, I found time to look about me, marveling at the oddly familiar appearance of the town.  As I looked, the houses, streets, and everything seemed to undergo a sudden and mysterious transposition with reference to the points of the compass, as if swinging round on a pivot; and like one awakened from a dream I found myself among accustomed scenes.  To be plain about it, I was back again in Swan Creek, as right as a trivet!

It was all the work of That Jim Peasley.  The designing rascal had provoked me to throw a confusing somersault, then bumped against me, turning me half round, and started on the back track, thereby inciting me to hook it in the same direction.  The cloudy day, the two lines of telegraph poles, one on each side of the track, the entire sameness of the landscape to the right and left—­these had all conspired to prevent my observing that I had put about.

When the excursion train returned from Flatbroke that evening the passengers were told a little story at my expense.  It was just what they needed to cheer them up a bit after what they had seen; for that flip-flap of mine had broken the neck of Jerome Bowles seven miles away!

THE LITTLE STORY

DRAMATIS PERSONAE—­A Supernumerary Editor.  A Probationary Contributor.

SCENE—­“The Expounder” Office.

PROBATIONARY CONTRIBUTOR—­Editor in?

SUPERNUMERARY EDITOR—­Dead.

P.C.—­The gods favor me. (Produces roll of manuscript.) Here is a little story, which I will read to you.

S.E.—­O, O!

P.C.—­(Reads.) “It was the last night of the year—­a naughty, noxious, offensive night.  In the principal street of San Francisco”—­

S.E.—­Confound San Francisco!

P.C.—­It had to be somewhere. (Reads.)