This was my first skating adventure, on a crutch; but I have skated many times since. So, you see, that, after all, the loss of a limb does not necessarily deprive a man of such little enjoyments. Energy, will and self-confidence will work wonders. What I want to do, I do. I have swam in the Schuylkill, Delaware, Monongahela, Ohio and Mississippi rivers, and in all the lakes; skated hundreds of miles; ridden hundreds of miles on horseback; walked hundreds of miles—all with one leg. There are only two things I can’t do, which another man can. One is to run; the other is to sit cross-legged. I do not say this to boast; for John Smith is modest. I merely mention these facts, that the public may know what a one-legged man can do, and that he’s “a man for a’ that.” CHAPTER XXIV. OVER THE MOUNTAINS. AS Spring approached, I resolved to take a western tour; and with that view left Philadelphia in February. For the sake of variety, having frequently traveled through Pennsylvania, I concluded to go to Pittsburg _via_ Baltimore, Maryland; Fairmont, in Western Virginia; and Uniontown, Western Pennsylvania—certainly a circuitous route. I desired to visit some friends in southwestern Pennsylvania, however, and it was not much out of my way, after all, to take the Philadelphia and Wilmington, and Baltimore and Ohio Railroads. One very cold day, I went from Philadelphia to Baltimore, and at ten o’clock that night left the latter place on the express train that was to run through to Wheeling—intending myself to get off at Fairmont. On this occasion, just after taking a seat in the car, a gentleman sat down by me, and after regarding my countenance attentively for a moment, said: “Pardon me: isn’t your name Smith?” I pardoned him, as desired, and told him it was. “First name John?” There was no denying it, and I replied in the affirmative. “Delighted to meet you!” he exclaimed, as we shook hands cordially. “When did you leave Nashville?” “I never left it,” was my response. “I was never there.” “No? Then excuse me: you cannot be the gentleman I supposed you, although your appearance and name strikingly correspond with those of a person I knew in Nashville a year ago—especially the name. He had also lost a leg, as you have.” “A remarkable coincidence,” said I. “In the course of my own travels, I have met with a great many of me—in name.” My fellow-traveler was an agreeable and good-humored gentleman, and I related to him the following anecdote of Doctor B. Frank Palmer, of Philadelphia, the great manufacturer of artificial limbs. Receiving an order for a leg from plain John Smith one day, and being in a merry mood, the Doctor sat down and answered John’s letter thus: