Again he thrusts his hands into his pockets, and with an air of apparent satisfaction, struts twice or thrice across the dingy room, as if he would show how far he has gained his equilibrium. “I shall go straight mad; yes, mad, if the whiskey be not brought in,” he pursues, stopping short in one of his sallies, and with a rhetorical flourish, pointing at the piece of silver he so exultingly tossed upon the table. As if his brain were again seized by the destroyer’s flame, his countenance becomes livid, his eyes glare wildly upon each object near him; then he draws himself into a tragic attitude, contorts hideously his more hideous face, throws his cap scornfully to the ground, and commences tearing from his head the matted black hair that confusedly covers it. “If my mother thinks this a fit place for me—” He pauses in the middle of his sentence, gives an imploring stare at his companions, shakes and hangs down his head; then his brain reels, and his frame trembles, and like a lifeless mass he falls to the floor. “I’m gone now—gone—gone—gone!” he mutters, with a spasmodic effort, covering his face with his hands. “He’ll go mad; you can only save him with a hair of the same dog,” one of the prisoner’s measuredly suggests, folding his arms, and looking mechanically upon the wretched man. A second agrees with the first; a third says he is past cure, though a gallon of whiskey were wasted upon him. Mr. Mingle, the vote-cribber—regarded good authority in such matters—interposes. He has not the shadow of a doubt but that a speedy cure can be effected, by his friends drinking the whiskey, (he will join them, without an objection,) and just letting Tom smell the glass. A fifth says, without prejudice to the State of South Carolina, if he knew Tom’s mother, he would honestly recommend her to send him special minister to Maine. There, drinking is rather an aristocratic indulgence, enjoyed only on the sly. Suddenly the poor inebriate gives vent to his frenzy. The color of his face changes from pale livid to sickly blue; his hands seem more shrunken and wiry; his body convulses and writhes upon the floor; he is become more the picture of a wild beast, goaded and aggravated in his confinement. A narcotic, administered by the hand of the jailer, produces quiet, and with the assistance of two prisoners is he raised to his feet, and supported into the corridor, to receive the benefit of fresh air. Here he remains some twenty minutes, stretched upon two benches, and eyed sharply by the vote-cribber, who paces in a circle round him, regarding him with a half suspicious leer, and twice or thrice pausing to fan his face with the drab felt hat he carries under his arm. “A curious mother that sends you here for reform,” muses the vote-cribber; “but he must be a perfect fleshhook on the feelings of the family.”