When he entered the little dwelling, his hair was dishevelled, and his eyes staring,――his whole aspect, indeed, was wild and singular. He, however, rushed up to his wife, exclaiming, “I have got it! I have got it!” He then kissed her over and over again; took up his children and nearly stifled them with his obstreperous embraces; at the same time, he shouted, danced and whirled round like a bedlamite. “What is it ails you, Tom? What in natur’ is the matter? Are you drunk or mad?” said his spouse. “I have got it,――there, there!” said Tom, hurling the bundle of silk at his wife’s head. “There’s the yaller damask, and the fine fan! And here’s the fifty thousand dollars!” Saying this, he took an enormous bundle of bank bills from his pocket, and giving it a whirl around his head, threw it across the room, and scattered the precious bits of paper over the floor. It is impossible to depict the astonishment of Mrs. Trudge, as she beheld the shower of bank bills, of five, ten and even twenty dollars each, now lying before her, as abundant as the very chips around the wood-pile. For a moment the dame was bewildered, and the idea crossed her mind that it was only a dream. It was indeed so much like one of those visions that often cheat the mind in sleep, that she stood still, rubbed her forehead and looked puzzled for several seconds. But in a few moments her husband, quite out of his head, began to dance among the scattered bills, and cutting his pigeon-wings where they lay thickest, made them fly in all directions. Several of them were near the hearth, and, caught by the draught, edged closer and closer to the heap of coals, and at last bounded under the forestick and were instantly reduced to ashes. Others took a flying leap up the throat of the chimney, and circling round and round, disappeared amidst the soot and coiling smoke.