"No, I do not. Who are you?" "I am Botts." "Botts!" said Toney. "Botts!" exclaimed Seddon. "Botts!" shouted Bragg. "Yes, gentlemen, I am Botts." CHAPTER X. It would require the perfection of language to describe the amazement of Captain Bragg when he beheld a slimy figure, looking like one of the powers by whom he continually swore, and heard a voice issuing from its ugly lips, and saying "I am Botts." The placards, in which he was about to doom his absconding adversary to eternal infamy, dropped from his hand, and were picked up by a boy, and converted into the tail for a kite. Toney and Tom were also astonished at the sudden and strange appearance of the missing man. After a moment of silence, Belton said,-- "Where did you come from?" "From the bottom of a well," said an Irishman. "Good heavens!" said Pate, who had just arrived in company with Wiggins and Perch,--"good heavens! did Botts fall into a well?" "And shure it's not for me to say how he got there. We found him in the well on his knees in the wather, and praying to the blessed Vargin and all the saints." "I'm almost dead! I'll never get over it!" said Botts. "Run for a doctor! run, Perch! run!" said Pate. Perch went off at the double-quick in search of medical aid, while Pate and Wiggins conducted their friend to the hotel. "Don't bring that man in here. I can't have my house covered with mud and filth. Take him to the bath-house and wash him," said the landlord. Pate pleaded and implored, but the landlord was inexorable; and they were compelled to conduct the miserable man to the bath-house. With some difficulty he was divested of his clothing; and, while Wiggins assisted him in performing his ablutions, Pate proceeded to his apartment and procured a change of raiment. His two friends then led him to his room, where they found Perch with the doctor. The physician examined his patient, and discovered that no bones were broken, and that there was no internal injury of any sort. He ordered Botts a strong tonic, and, telling him to keep quiet in bed and he would be well in the morning, took his departure. Perch soon after left the room, saying that he had an engagement to walk with Miss Imogen Hazlewood. Pate and Wiggins sat by the bedside of their afflicted friend, who, with many a moan and dolorous ejaculation, told the story of his misfortune, which we will endeavor to abbreviate and relate in more intelligible language.