“At the other side the old gentleman told me to reach down for a brass knob.  I thought a trick was going to be played on me, and I dodged.

“‘Do not be afraid; turn it when you pull; steady; there, that’s it.’  It came, and a door shut of itself.

“‘Mighty good hinges!’ said I, ’don’t make any noise, and go shut without slamming and cussing them.’

“‘Yes—­yes! some of my own importation.  No, they were never made here.’

“It was dark at first, but whenever the other door opened, there was too much light.  In another room there was a table in the middle, with two bottles, and little glasses like them in St. Louis at the drink-houses, only prettier.  A soft, thick carpet was on the floor, and a square glass lamp hung from the ceiling.  I sat cross-legged on the floor, and he on a sofa, his feet cocked on a chair, and his tail coiled under him, comfortable as traders in a lodge.  He hollered something, I couldn’t make out, and in comes two black crook-shanked devils with a round bench and a glass with cigars in it.  They vamosed, and the old coon, inviting me to take a cigar, helps himself, and reared his head back, while I sorter lays on the floor, and we smoked and talked.

“’But have we not been sitting long enough?  Take a fresh cigar, and we will walk.  That was Purgatory where your quondam friend, Jake Beloo, is.  He will remain there awhile longer, and, if you desire it can go, though it cost much exertion to entice him here, and then only after he had drunk hard.’

“’I wish you would, sir.  Jake was as good a companion as ever trapped beaver, or gnawed poor bull in the spring, and he treated his squaw as if she was a white woman.’

“’For your sake I will; we may see others of our acquaintance before leaving this,’ says he, sorter queer-like, as if to mean, no doubt of it.

“The door of the room we had been talking in shut of its own accord.  We stooped, and he touched a spring in the wall, a trap-door flew open, showing a flight of steps.  He went first, cautioning me not to slip on the dark stairs; but I shouted not to mind me, but thanked him for telling me, though.

“We went down and down, until I began to think the old cuss was going to get me safe too, so I sung out—­’Hello! which way; we must be mighty nigh under Wah-to-yah, we’ve been going on so long?’

“‘Yes,’ said he, much astonished; ’we’re just under the Twins.  Why, turn and twist you ever so much, you do not lose your reckoning.’

“’Not by a long chalk!  This child had his bringing-up at Wapakonnetta, and that’s a fact.’

“From the bottom we went on in a dampish sort of a passage, gloomily lit up with one candle.  The grease was running down the block that had an auger-hole bored in it for a candlestick, and the long snuff to the end was red, and the blaze clung to it as if it hated to part company, and turned black, and smoked at the point in mourning.  The cold chills shook me, and the old gentleman kept so still, the echoes of my feet rolled back so solemn and hollow, I wanted liquor mighty bad—­mighty bad!