An extraordinary story, some say the recital of a dream, or scenes in somnambulism, is that of Andrew Waples, of Horntown, Va.  He visited Saratoga twenty years ago, well-to-do, the owner of slaves, sloops, lands, and fisheries, and visits it now upon an income of $2000 a year, derived from boiling down fish into phosphates for the midland markets.  He preserves, however, the habit and appearance of old days:  that is to say, his chin is folded away under his lip like a reef in a mainsail; his cheek-bones hide his ears, so tusky and prominent are the former, and tipped with a varnish of red, like corns on old folks’ feet; he has a nose which is so long and bony that it seems to have been constructed in sections, like a tubular bridge, and to communicate with itself by relays of sensation.  A straight, mournful, twinkling, yet aristocratic man was Andrew Waples, “befo’ de waw, sah! befo’ de waw!”

He had no sooner arrived at Saratoga than he met some ancient boon companions, who took him off to the lake, exploded champagne, filled his lungs with cigar-smoke, and sent him to bed, the first night, with a decided thirst and no occasion to say his prayers.  For it was Andrew’s intention, being a mournful man of the Eastern Shore, to pray on every unusual occurrence.  Piety is relative as well as real, but Andrew Waples on this occasion jumped into bed, said hic and amen, and “times befo’ de waw,” and went to sleep in the somnorific air of the Springs.

He awoke with a dry throat, a disposition to faint and surrender his stomach, and an irresistible propensity to walk abroad and drink of the waters.  He looked at his watch:  it was two o’clock, and Saturday night.  “Alas!” said Andrew Waples aloud, “the bars are closed.  Even Morrissey has gone to bed, and the club-house is in darkness, but perhaps I can climb over the gate of some spring company, or find a fountain uninclosed.  Yes, there is the High Rock Spring!”

He drew on his clothes partly, slipped his feet in slippers, and wrote on a piece of paper, which he conspicuously posted on the gas bracket: 

“Andrew Waples, Gentleman (befo’ de waw), departed from the United States Hotel, at two o’clock A. M., precisely.  If any accident happens to him, seek at the High Rock Spring, or thereabouts.”

It was a sad, green, ghostly moonlight streaming through the elms as Andrew Waples walked up Broadway.  The moon appeared to be dredging for oysters amongst the clouds, circling around there by bars, islets, and shoals.  Bits of spotted and mackerel-back sky swam like hosts of menhaden through the pearly sheen of the more open aerial main.  The leaves of the tall domes and kissing branches of the elms, that peeped on either side into open windows of people asleep and told across the street to each other the secrets there, were now themselves heavy as if with surfeit of gossip and they drooped and hardly rustled.  Not a tipsy waiter lurked in the shadows, not a skylarking