My exertions, as I have before said, proved fruitless.  Closet after closet —­ drawer after drawer —­ corner after corner —­ were scrutinized to no purpose.  At one time, however, I thought myself sure of my prize, having, in rummaging a dressing-case, accidentally demolished a bottle of Grandjean’s Oil of Archangels —­ which, as an agreeable perfume, I here take the liberty of recommending.

With a heavy heart I returned to my boudoir —­ there to ponder upon some method of eluding my wife’s penetration, until I could make arrangements prior to my leaving the country, for to this I had already made up my mind.  In a foreign climate, being unknown, I might, with some probability of success, endeavor to conceal my unhappy calamity —­ a calamity calculated, even more than beggary, to estrange the affections of the multitude, and to draw down upon the wretch the well-merited indignation of the virtuous and the happy.  I was not long in hesitation.  Being naturally quick, I committed to memory the entire tragedy of “Metamora.”  I had the good fortune to recollect that in the accentuation of this drama, or at least of such portion of it as is allotted to the hero, the tones of voice in which I found myself deficient were altogether unnecessary, and the deep guttural was expected to reign monotonously throughout.

I practised for some time by the borders of a well frequented marsh; —­ herein, however, having no reference to a similar proceeding of Demosthenes, but from a design peculiarly and conscientiously my own.  Thus armed at all points, I determined to make my wife believe that I was suddenly smitten with a passion for the stage.  In this, I succeeded to a miracle; and to every question or suggestion found myself at liberty to reply in my most frog-like and sepulchral tones with some passage from the tragedy —­ any portion of which, as I soon took great pleasure in observing, would apply equally well to any particular subject.  It is not to be supposed, however, that in the delivery of such passages I was found at all deficient in the looking asquint —­ the showing my teeth —­ the working my knees —­ the shuffling my feet —­ or in any of those unmentionable graces which are now justly considered the characteristics of a popular performer.  To be sure they spoke of confining me in a strait-jacket —­ but, good God! they never suspected me of having lost my breath.

Having at length put my affairs in order, I took my seat very early one morning in the mail stage for —­, giving it to be understood, among my acquaintances, that business of the last importance required my immediate personal attendance in that city.

The coach was crammed to repletion; but in the uncertain twilight the features of my companions could not be distinguished.  Without making any effectual resistance, I suffered myself to be placed between two gentlemen of colossal dimensions; while a third, of a size larger, requesting pardon for the liberty he was about to take, threw himself upon my body at full length, and falling asleep in an instant, drowned all my guttural ejaculations for relief, in a snore which would have put to blush the roarings of the bull of Phalaris.  Happily the state of my respiratory faculties rendered suffocation an accident entirely out of the question.