ferocious old cannibal, wizard, sorcerer, high priest,--as it appeared very probable,--to Satan himself. "Blacken his remaining eye! knock him over and run the country!" whispered quite plainly in my ear my guardian angel, or else a little impulsive sprite who often made suggestions to me in those days. For a couple of seconds the sorcerer's eye was in desperate danger; but just in those moments the ceremony, or at least this most objectionable part of it, came to an end. He stood back and said, "Have you been in the house?" Fortunately I had presence of mind enough to _forget_ that I had, and said, "No." "Throw out all those pots and kettles." I saw it was no use to resist--so out they went. "Fling out those dishes" was the next command. "The dishes?--they will break." "I am going to break them all." Capital fun this--out go the dishes; "and may the ----." I fear I was about to say something bad. "Fling out those knives, and those things with sharp points"--(the old villain did not know what to call the forks!)--"and those shells with handles to them"--(spoons!)--"out with everything." The last sweeping order is obeyed and the kitchen is fairly empty. The worst is over now at last, thank goodness, said I to myself. "Strip off all your clothes." "What? strip naked! you desperate old thief--mind your eye." Human patience could bear no more. Out I jumped. I did "strip." Off came my jacket. "How would you prefer being killed, old ruffian? can you do anything in this way?" (Here a pugilistic demonstration.) "Strip! he doesn't mean to give me five dozen, does he?" said I, rather bewildered, and looking sharp to see if he had anything like an instrument of flagellation in his possession. "Come on! what are you waiting for?" said I. In those days, when labouring under what Dickens calls the "description of temporary insanity which arises from a sense of injury," I always involuntarily fell back upon my mother tongue, which in this case was perhaps fortunate, as my necromantic old friend did not understand the full force of my eloquence. He could not, however, mistake my warlike and rebellious attitude, and could see clearly I was going into one of those most unaccountable rages that pakehas were liable to fly into, without any imaginable cause. "Boy," said he, gravely and quietly, and without seeming to notice my very noticeable declaration of war and independence, "don't act foolishly; don't go mad. No one will ever come near you while you have those clothes. You will be miserable here by yourself. And what is the use of being angry? what will _anger_ do for you?" The perfect coolness of my old friend, the complete disregard he paid to my explosion of wrath, as well as his reasoning, began to make me feel a little disconcerted. He evidently had come with the purpose and intention to get me out of a very awkward scrape. I began also to feel that, looking at the affair from his point of view, I was just possibly not making a very respectable figure; and