Yes! breathless.  I am serious in asserting that my breath was entirely gone.  I could not have stirred with it a feather if my life had been at issue, or sullied even the delicacy of a mirror.  Hard fate! —­ yet there was some alleviation to the first overwhelming paroxysm of my sorrow.  I found, upon trial, that the powers of utterance which, upon my inability to proceed in the conversation with my wife, I then concluded to be totally destroyed, were in fact only partially impeded, and I discovered that had I, at that interesting crisis, dropped my voice to a singularly deep guttural, I might still have continued to her the communication of my sentiments; this pitch of voice (the guttural) depending, I find, not upon the current of the breath, but upon a certain spasmodic action of the muscles of the throat.

Throwing myself upon a chair, I remained for some time absorbed in meditation.  My reflections, be sure, were of no consolatory kind.  A thousand vague and lachrymatory fancies took possesion of my soul —­ and even the idea of suicide flitted across my brain; but it is a trait in the perversity of human nature to reject the obvious and the ready, for the far-distant and equivocal.  Thus I shuddered at self-murder as the most decided of atrocities while the tabby cat purred strenuously upon the rug, and the very water dog wheezed assiduously under the table, each taking to itself much merit for the strength of its lungs, and all obviously done in derision of my own pulmonary incapacity.

Oppressed with a tumult of vague hopes and fears, I at length heard the footsteps of my wife descending the staircase.  Being now assured of her absence, I returned with a palpitating heart to the scene of my disaster.

Carefully locking the door on the inside, I commenced a vigorous search.  It was possible, I thought, that, concealed in some obscure corner, or lurking in some closet or drawer, might be found the lost object of my inquiry.  It might have a vapory —­ it might even have a tangible form.  Most philosophers, upon many points of philosophy, are still very unphilosophical.  William Godwin, however, says in his “Mandeville,” that “invisible things are the only realities,” and this, all will allow, is a case in point.  I would have the judicious reader pause before accusing such asseverations of an undue quantum of absurdity.  Anaxagoras, it will be remembered, maintained that snow is black, and this I have since found to be the case.

Long and earnestly did I continue the investigation:  but the contemptible reward of my industry and perseverance proved to be only a set of false teeth, two pair of hips, an eye, and a bundle of billets-doux from Mr. Windenough to my wife.  I might as well here observe that this confirmation of my lady’s partiality for Mr. W. occasioned me little uneasiness.  That Mrs. Lackobreath should admire anything so dissimilar to myself was a natural and necessary evil.  I am, it is well known, of a robust and corpulent appearance, and at the same time somewhat diminutive in stature.  What wonder, then, that the lath-like tenuity of my acquaintance, and his altitude, which has grown into a proverb, should have met with all due estimation in the eyes of Mrs. Lackobreath.  But to return.