AT last I fell asleep, but it was only to be awakened at dawn by resounding footsteps passing to and fro in the adjoining room, intermingled with sounds from which I judged that there was an impatient searching of drawers or tables, and in every corner of the apartment. The hurrying and rummaging grew more violent, a soliloquy which at first softly accompanied the movements grew louder and louder, and gradually passed into exclamations of rage, and at last into a volley of oaths, which was not exactly in a Christian spirit, and which was accompanied by a savage stamping and bellowing. It seemed to me the man had gone mad. I dressed myself hastily, knocked at the door, and in my excitement, forgetting all form, I entered the room without awaiting his call. With flashing eyes the occupant darted at me as if about to seize me by my throat; suddenly he controlled himself, stood stock-still before me, gave me a penetrating glance, and said with quiet severity, “Sir, an unconscious thirst for knowledge has brought you to this room.” My conscience reproaching me for my breach of good manners, I was disarmed, and merely said “Yes,” in a dejected tone. I then asked him what for heaven’s sake was the matter with him. A. E.--for brevity’s sake I will henceforth call my fellow-traveller so--falling back into his fit of violence, cried in a voice of thunder, “My spectacles, my spectacles! They’ve seen fit to go and hide themselves--to say nothing at present of the key, the little devil!” “So you are merely looking for your spectacles? Is this an object worthy of such rage? Don’t you know what it is to be patient?” He was about to fly at me again, but, controlling himself once more, he merely looked at me and said: “Screw-drivers? cork-screws?” “What do you mean by that?”