That evening I rowed over for Jack. He had not yet arrived, although the sun had set when I arrived, as agreed, at the little hotel at Hague. Something unusual was going on, and I made various guesses as to the reason why so many well-dressed maids and shaven yeomen were gathered on the porch. Seven o’clock came, and yet no Jack. I eagerly inquired after supper, resolved not to risk the chance of being obliged to depend upon myself for a cook. The dining-room had been cleared of every table save the one which I occupied, and shortly after I had come out from supper I saw the young people crowding into it. I had now begun to suspect what was the matter, when an honest-looking young gentleman, fresh and fragrant from a process to which he shortly afterwards urged and invited me, approached and said: “Stranger, you’re camping on the p’int?” To this piece of information I nodded a genial assent. “Lookin’ for your pardner?” asked the pleasant young man. I nodded again. “Well, he’ll be in soon. He’s gone out with a fellow that 89 never misses this sort of thing.” I had previously formed my own notion of Jack’s companion, and a jolly flourish on a neighboring violin forestalled the necessity of inquiring as to the nature of the “thing” which exercised such an influence over him. The pleasant young man, however, became confidential, and added with an ingenuous air: “The fact is, we are going to shuffle the hoof a little to-night, and he never misses anything like that. You’d better come in and try it yourself.” Then, becoming confidential in turn and glancing at my unpolished extremities, I suggested that perhaps the articles in question were not in a condition to be shuffled. Here it was that our sympathy culminated, and my friend, in a burst of intimacy, proffered the invitation before alluded to, with the words: “Come along and slick up.” I do not know into what folly I might have been seduced if my good angel Jack had not just then appeared and rescued me. “How many deer, Jack?” “Oh! we did not so much as start one,” he answered. And then asked, “Have you had anything to eat?” On my reply, Jack said that he was glad, for he had just had his own supper in the kitchen. As we rowed back to camp, Jack fell asleep in the stern of the boat, while telling me how he had tramped in vain from early dawn till night. Oh! how proud I felt next morning, when, after kindling the fire and putting on the kettle, I came back and found Jack still sleeping in the tent. Dear old nervous Jack! who ever saw you asleep in daytime before? Quick as the thought in my mind, he bounded up as freshly as one of the deer of which he had been dreaming. “Caught!” he said, the old quiet smile lighting up his face as he came out and fell to work getting breakfast. When we had finished our meal and laughed over the adventures of the precious day, Jack set me to catching grasshoppers, while he prepared the fishing tackle.