When nearing my quarters I heard a faint "hillo" from a by-street, and a continental mess-mate stumbled almost into my arms. He fully intended to do so and I had no wish to avoid him but somehow we missed each other and both fell prostrate on the pavement. Far from feeling any ill-humour at this catastrophe, we both thought it a capital joke, and I can distinctly remember our sitting side by side in the gutter and swearing eternal friendship. After this things are vague, and the next I remember is going upstairs on all fours and then opening my bedroom door. A most remarkable sight presented itself. I have seen mirage in the Arabian desert, but I have never seen anything like that. There was my bed, shrunk to the size of about one inch in length, at the top corner of the room near the ceiling, dancing up and down at the end of a bright and circling tunnel. How to get there I did not know. I can just remember sinking on hands and knees in order to attempt the climb, when the floor struck me so violently in the face that I lost consciousness, awaking late next morning to find myself reclining on the bed, but still in my dress clothes. My friend, it was said, attempted to go to bed in his bath, where he was discovered in full evening dress, scooping the water over himself and complaining that he could not keep the sheets up. But this is by the way. At Kiukiang, where I happened to be a few years later, the community was small, consisting of a few married couples and perhaps half a dozen bachelors. Time hung like lead, and small wonder that now and again we young men would foregather round the festive board, when high spirits long pent up would burst forth with a _vim_ that is but rarely attained in places offering perennial sources of amusement.