This contract being honourably completed on both sides, I retreated to a solitary shed to eat my _duff_ (the name by which this description of pudding was well known among us), where without any great exertion, I soon brought the two extremities of my quarter of a yard together. The last mouthful put me to the extremity of my wits to devise how I could possibly account for the sudden disappearance of my shoes. My first impulse was to run in search of the old woman, and endeavour, by fair promises, to coax her out of the shoes again; but I soon found that no such chance was left me, for she had made a precipitate retreat from the place where we had transacted our business together, knowing well that she was punishable for having bought such articles of me. Nothing appeared to be now left for me but a palpable falsehood; and, although of this I had a great abhorrence, yet I really had not sufficient courage to think of avowing the literal truth. At length I thought I had hit upon a sort of compromise, and I determined to say that I had dropped my shoes on my way home; which, though not exactly the fact, yet approached nearer to the truth than anything else I could devise, likely to serve my end. As on all other occasions of the kind, however, it appeared that I might just as well have made a full confession at once--for my statement was not believed--and as I could not in any other way account satisfactorily for the elopement of my shoes, I was ordered seven days' black-hole for the purpose of refreshing my memory. Against this punishment I prayed long and loudly, but all to no purpose; so, with the remainder of my day's rations under my arm, off I was marched, not much elated with the dreary prospect before me. When I heard the door of the cell creak upon its hinges behind me, and the huge key grate in the lock, I began to think that I had parted with my shoes too cheap, and, for some time after, I sat myself down in a corner, and brooded in melancholy mood over the misfortune which I had by my own folly brought upon myself. But I was never one of the desponding kind; and it therefore soon occurred to me, that, instead of indulging in dismal reflections, it would be far wiser, and more pleasant, to devise some means by which I might contrive to amuse myself during the period of my confinement. Seven days and seven nights appeared to me at first to be a long time to remain encaged in darkness; and yet there was certainly something soldier-like in the situation. The mere fact of being a prisoner had a military sound with it. To be sure, I was imprisoned for having eaten my shoes; but what of that? Was it not quite as easy for me to imagine myself a prisoner of war? Certainly it was; and accordingly, with this impression strong on my mind, I dropped into a profound sleep in the midst of my meditations, and dreamed that I was deposited in this dungeon by the chance of war. On waking I found myself