"The day of the drawing at last came, and I went to the office to get my deed, for I never doubted a single instant that I had drawn the big prize. I entered the office, and told the clerk that I would take the documents. "'What documents?' said he. "'Why, my deed of the magnificent country mansion and farm in New Jersey, with three hundred acres of land, and a house with all the modern improvements.' "Gentlemen, I have been, in the course of my life, kicked by a horse, knocked into a cocked hat by a threshing-machine, and had my hair singed off by chain-lightning, but neither one of these occurrences so astounded me as did that red-haired clerk, when he informed me that my ticket had drawn a gold pen, with a silver holder, and a place in the top to put pencil-leads in. "Gentlemen, I was not furious, I was perfectly cool; but when I jumped over that counter, and laid hands on that red-haired clerk, I will admit that it was my calmly-settled intention to eat that red-haired clerk for luncheon, notwithstanding his cock-eye. A hasty glance at the mud on his boots, and the metal buttons on his coat-tails, caused me to alter my original amiable intention, and I made up my mind to be gentle with him, and merely whip him so his mother wouldn't be able to tell him from a Little Neck clam on a large scale, and then leave him to live through it if he could. "I struck him once, and he laid down in a corner among some bottles, with his head in the gas-meter, and in one minute from that time he was one universal damage.