Returning from the cave, _via_ McCulloch’s Leap, it was my lot to encounter one of the greatest bores I ever met. He was one of those persons who, it is said, can “talk a man to death.” He made me think of the celebrated lines of Pope: “No place so sacred from such fops is barred,  Nor is Paul’s church more safe than Paul’s churchyard.  Nay, fly to altars, there they talk you dead,  And fools rush in where angels fear to tread.” He lived in a solitary house, by the creek at the base of the declivity, and he happened to come out just as I was about to make the ascent. He was a fast talker, said a great many words in a few seconds, and often spoke a good many seconds at a time. “How do you do, sir? How do you do?” he said familiarly. “Fine day.” “Very,” I said. “Quite pleasant.” I wanted to get back to my hotel, for my stomach admonished me that it was fully dinner-time; and so, I made an attempt to pass on and begin to climb the hill. It was no use, though. He commenced by asking me if I lost my leg in the army, then went on asking one question after another—in such rapid succession that I only got each one about half answered—till he had asked three times the number usually proposed. He asked questions such as I had never thought of before, and kept on so fast that I fancied he asked them merely for the pleasure of it, and not for the sake of hearing them answered. He not only asked me if I was born in this country, where I was brought up, what kind of saw-mills we had there, and what barbers charged for cutting hair; but also desired to know if I had ever looked at the moon through a telescope, and if I thought corn as good a diet for horses as oats. Every question that any mortal man could think of in so short a time, he asked me, till I finally felt that I must either move on, or die. I moved on, in the midst of the conversation, and looked back over my shoulder now and then to answer questions, which he continued to ask. “Are you going to walk up the hill?” “Yes.” “Can you do it?” “O, yes.” “Aint you afraid you’ll fall?” “No.” I began to ascend the acclivity, and he talked on. “Did you ever go up such a steep place before?” “Yes, steeper,” I yelled back, thinking of Bunker Hill Monument. “And didn’t fall?” he continued, as I took another labored stride onward and upward. “No.” “Wasn’t you afraid of falling?” “No.” “You must be plucky.” As this did not strictly demand any answer, I took advantage of a momentary pause to say, “Good day.” “Good——But say? What regiment did you say you were in?” “Eighth Pennsyl——” “Did you know a man in that regiment by the name of—” I had now ascended to the height of seventy-five or eighty feet, when I stopped on a sort of shelf, to rest a moment, turned about and said: “What was his name?” “I forget—I was just trying to think—O, yes, it was—let me see—was it—no—was it—Harbertson?”