“Hallo!” exclaimed Mr. Waples, “are you a town scavenger, to be up at this time of the clock?”

The man replied, after a very curious and explosive sound of his lips, like the extraction of a cork from a bottle, “No, sir; I’m only the Great Dipper.”

“Very good,” resumed Mr. Waples.  “Then, perhaps, you’ll explain to me a very great optical delusion, or tell me that I’m drunk.  Do you see our two shadows as they fall yonder on the ground, and amongst the tree-tops?  Now, if I have any eyes in my head, there is a stomach in your shadow and no stomach whatever in mine.”

“Quite right,” answered the Great Dipper.  “You are the mere rim of a former stomach.  Abdominally, you are defunct.”

Andrew Waples put his hand instinctively where his stomach was presumed to be, and he saw the hand of his shadow distinctly imitate the motion, and repeat it through his empty centre.

“This is Sir William Johnson’s night,” remarked the Great Dipper.  “We have a large company of guests on this anniversary, and no gentleman is admitted with a stomach, nor any lady with a character.  My whole force of dippers is on to-night, and I must be spry.”

As the venerable man spoke, and ceased to speak, exploding before and after each utterance, it occurred to Mr. Waples that his voice had a sort of mineral-water gurgle, which was very refreshing to a thirsty man’s ears.  He followed, therefore, down the flight of rickety stairs and stood in the midst of a promenading party of many hundred people, variously dressed and in the costumes of several generations.

The canopy or pavilion of the spring, which, like a fairy temple, seemed to have been exhaled from in bubbles, was yet capped, as in the broad light of day, by a gilded eagle, from whose beak was suspended a bottle of the water, and no other light was shed upon the scene than the silver and golden radiance emitted together from this bottle, as if ten thousand infinitely small goldfish floated there in liquid quicksilver.  The spring itself, flowing over its ancient mound of lime, iron and clay, like the venerable beard over the Arabian prophet’s yellow breast, shed another light as if through a veil fluttered the molten fire of some pulsating crater.  The whole scene of the narrow valley, the group of springs, the sandy walks, dark foliage, and in closing ridges took a pale yellow hue from the effervescing water and the irradiant bottle in the eagle’s beak.  The people walking to and fro and drinking and returning, all carried their hands upon their stomachs or sides, and sighed amidst their flirtations.  Mr. Waples saw, despite their garments, which represented a hundred years and more of all kinds, from Continental uniforms and hunting shirts to brocades, plush velvets, and court suits, that not a being of all the multitude contained an abdomen.  He stopped one large and portly man, who was carried on a litter, and said: 

“Have you a window through you, too, old chap?”