We said "yes," or something of the kind, and thought to ourself, no doubt you know all that's going on of that sort of business like a book, and a host of other ideas flashed across our mind, while all the evil deeds of note transacted in that region for the past ten years, seemed awakened in our mind's eye, working up our nervous system, until the coon skin cap upon our excited head stood upon about fifteen hairs, with the strange and overwhelming impression that our time had come! We would have given the State of Missouri--if it were in our possession, to have heard Captain V----'s voice, or even have had a fair chance to dash out at the door, and give the fellow before us a specimen of tall walking--lame as we were! "Ain't you got a _light_? I'd think you'd be a little timid (a _little_ timid!) about laying around here, alone, in the dark, too?" said the fellow, sticking one hand into his coat pocket, and gazing sharply around the store. Mock heroically says we-- "Afraid? Afraid of what?" our valor, like Bob Acres', oozing out at our fingers. "These outlaws you've got around here," said he. "They say the man they hanged to-day was a decent fellow to what some are, who prowl around in this country!" We very modestly said, "that such fellows never bothered us." "Do you sleep in this store--live here?" "No, sir, we don't," was our answer. "Where do you lodge and get your eating?" "First house up the road." "How far is it?" says he. "Half a mile or less." "Well, close up your shop, and come along with me!" says the fellow. Now we were coming to the _tableaux!_ He wanted us to step outside in order that the business could be done for us, with more haste and certainty, and we really felt as good as assassinated and hid in the bushes! It was quite astonishing how our visual organs intensified! We could see every wrinkle and line in the fellow's face, could almost count the stitches in his coat, and the more we looked, and the keener and more searching became our observation, the more atrocious and subtle became the fellow and his purpose. With a firmness that astonished ourself, we said-- "_No, Sir_; if _you_ have business there or elsewhere, you had better _go!_" and with this determined speech, we walked up to the desk, and with the air of a "man of business" or the nonchalance of a hero, says we-- "What are you after--have you any business with _us_?" "You're kind of crusty, Mister," says he. "I'm canvassing this State,--_wouldn't you like to subscribe for a first-rate map of Missouri_, OR A NEW EDITION OF JOSEPHUS?" We felt too mean all over to "subscribe," but we found a light, and soon found in the stranger one of the best sort of fellows, a man of information and morality, and, though he had _looked_ dangerous, he turned out harmless as a lamb, and we got intimate as brothers before Captain V---- returned that night. Ralph Waldo Emerson.