"No, you needn't, now,--I see you wink at him,--honor bright. I'd been up to town, to take a mess o' clams at Giberson's, with maybe a sprinklin' of his apple-jack,--nothing else,--and I was on my way home,--to Skillman's tavern at the _dépôt_, you know,--and I'd jest stopped a piece, and was a-standing there, looking at the moon in the water, when he tipped me over. I tell you, I was mad when I crawled out wet as a rat; and if I'd ketched him then, you may depend upon it, I'd 'a' given his jacket a precious warming. As I said, he run off, but jest as I turned towards the tavern, I see him a-coming back, kinder wild-like; so I slipped behind a lumber-pile, hoping he might come over the bridge, so I could lay my fingers on him. The moon was about its highest, so I could see his face, plain as day,-- white,--skim-milk warn't a circumstance to it,--and his eyes wide open as they could stretch. I tell you, he was wild! He looked up and down a bit, mumbled somethin' I couldn't make out, and then what do you think that boy did? Why, he jumped in, clothes and all, bold as a lion,--plainly to save me from drowning, and me all the time a-spyin' at him from behind a lumber-pile! He was sarching for me, I knowed, for he swum up and down jest about there for the space maybe of a quarter of an hour. And when he give it up at last, and come out, he kinder sunk down on the tow-path, and I heard him say plain enough, though he only whispered it,--jest like a woman actor I see down to York oncet, playin' in Guy something or other,--she was a sort of an old gypsy devil,--says he, 'I am a murderer, then!' Thinks I, 'Sonny, all but the murderer!' And as he stood up again, he 'peared to suffer so, his face was so white, and his knees so shaky, that I says to myself, 'Dan, you've carried the joke far enough.' So I sings out to him, and comes out from behind the lumber-stack, but, Lord bless ye! he jest peeped round over his shoulder oncet, gave a kind of chokin' scream like, and put out up the road as if the Devil was after him. I knowed it warn't no use to follow him, so I got on a dry shirt and went to bed. The next day I went home, and I'd mighty near forgot all about it, only today I came to see Dr. Thorne for somethin' to do my cold good, and he wantin' to know how I ketched it brought the whole matter back again."