The window made him rage; it wouldn’t stay up. I said, “Never mind, I’ll hold it.” Indeed, I would have done anything to help. I was only a boy and was already in a radiant heaven of anticipation. He climbed carefully out, clung to the window sill until his feet were safely placed, then began to pick his perilous way on all-fours along the glassy comb, a foot and a hand on each side of it. I believe I enjoy it now as much as I did then: yet it is nearly fifty years ago. The frosty breeze flapped his short shirt about his lean legs; the crystal roof shone like polished marble in the intense glory of the moon; the unconscious cats sat erect upon the chimney, alertly watching each other, lashing their tails and pouring out their hollow grievances; and slowly and cautiously Jim crept on, flapping as he went, the gay and frolicsome young creatures under the vine canopy unaware, and outraging these solemnities with their misplaced laughter. Every time Jim slipped I had a hope; but always on he crept and disappointed it. At last he was within reaching distance. He paused, raised himself carefully up, measured his distance deliberately, then made a frantic grab at the nearest cat--and missed it. Of course he lost his balance. His heels flew up, he struck on his back, and like a rocket he darted down the roof feet first, crashed through the dead vines, and landed in a sitting position in fourteen saucers of red-hot candy, in the midst of all that party--and dressed as _he_ was--this lad who could not look a girl in the face with his clothes on. There was a wild scramble and a storm of shrieks, and Jim fled up the stairs, dripping broken crockery all the way. From Mark Twain’s _Autobiography_. By permission of Harper & Brothers, Publishers. THE HUNTING TRIP STEWART EDWARD WHITE They ran down to the Club House the following Saturday afternoon; the local stopping for a brief moment to drop them by the edge of a river without a building in sight. Cousin Jim unlocked a padlocked boat, and they rowed down stream two miles to a small shanty perched on the bank above high water. It was gray dark when they arrived, and an edged wind was searching deliberately across the marshes seeking whom it might shiver. A faint lucent streak in the west was reflected here and there on little pools among the marsh grasses and cat-tails. All the world was flat, except for three cold and naked trees against the sky. Cousin Jim unlocked the shanty, fumbled about and produced a light. “Here we are!” he cried cheerfully, “snug as a bug in a rug!” He clattered open a small iron stove and began to fuss with kindlings.