This latter form seemed to please him the best:—perhaps because it involved less risk; for Dammit had become excessively parsimonious. Had any one taken him up, his head was small, and thus his loss would be small too. But these are my own reflections, and I am by no means sure that I am right in attributing them to him. At all events, the phrase in question grew daily in favor, notwithstanding the gross impropriety of a man’s betting his brains like bank-notes:—but this was a point which my friend’s perversity of disposition would not permit him to comprehend. In the end, he abandoned all other forms of wager, and gave himself up to “_I’ll bet you my head_,” with a pertinacity and exclusiveness of devotion that displeased not less than it surprised me. I am always displeased by circumstances for which I cannot account. Mysteries force a man to think, and so injure his health. The truth is, there was something in _the air_ with which Mr. Dammit was wont to give utterance to his offensive expression—something in his _manner_ of enunciation—which at first interested, and afterwards made me very uneasy—something which, for want of a more definite term at present, I must be permitted to call _queer_; but which Mr. Coleridge would have called mystical, Mr. Kant pantheistical, Mr. Carlisle twistical, and Mr. Emerson hyper-fizzitistical. I began not to like it at all. Mr. Dammit’s soul was in a perilous state. I resolved to bring all my eloquence into play to save it. I vowed to serve him as Saint Patrick, in the Irish chronicle, is said to have served the snakes and toads when he “awakened them to a sense of their situation.” I addressed myself to the task forthwith. Once more I betook myself to remonstrance. Again I collected my energies for a final attempt at expostulation. When I had made an end of my lecture Mr. Dammit indulged himself in some very equivocal behavior. For some moments he remained silent, merely looking me inquisitively in the face. But presently he threw his head to one side, and elevated his eyebrows to great extent. Then he spread out the palms of his hands and shrugged up his shoulders. Then he winked with the right eye. Then he repeated the operation with his left. Then he shut them both up very tight, as if he was trying to crack nuts between the lids. Then he opened them both so very wide that I became seriously alarmed for the consequences. Then, applying his thumb to his nose, he thought proper to make an indescribable movement with the rest of his fingers. Finally, setting his arms a-kimbo, he condescended to reply.