Lamar seated himself near the files of morning papers which lay strewed along a reading-desk, and awaited the arrival of his singular new acquaintance. In a few minutes Damon stalked in. A new black hat and blue frock-coat had so much altered his appearance, that Lamar did not recognise him until he took off his hat, wiped his dripping brows with the handkerchief which he still carried in it, and then, seeing Lamar for the first time, waved it over his head. "Hurrah! for old Kentuck!" was his characteristic exclamation. "Why, Damon, you have been under the tailor's hands," said Lamar. "I believe I was in Old Sam's hands last night; but come up-stairs, and I will tell you all about it." They proceeded to the third story into a small apartment, dimly lighted through a single window. Damon, after seating Lamar, threw aside his coat, and drawing from under the head of his bed the one in which Lamar had first seen him, he quickly inserted his arms through what remained of the garment,--the lappels were torn off on each side down to the waist, so that all the front of the coat was gone, leaving nothing but the long straight back, collar, and sleeves. What remained was smeared with mud, and torn in many places. He next proceeded to pull out of his pocket a collar, and parts of two sleeves of a shirt, spreading them on the bed, as a milliner would do her finery; and holding out both his hands with the palms upward in the manner of an orator,---- "There!" said he, "that's what I call a pretty tolerable neat job, to shirt a stranger the first night he comes to town." Lamar, who by this time began to see a little into the affair, asked, "But, Damon, how did all this happen? you seem to have been discomfited." "Now I'll be smashed if you ain't off the trail, stranger, for you see I've only showed you half yet." Upon which he drew from his other pocket a pair of spectacles, bent, bloody, and broken,--then a wig,--and, lastly, the remains of a little black rattan with a gold head and chain broken into inches. He displayed these on the bed as he had done the others; only drawing his handkerchief as a line between them. Upon this he fell, rather than sat, back into a chair just behind him, and burst out into a loud, long, and hearty laugh, seemingly excited afresh at the sight of his spoils. "Well, now," said he, "I wish I may be horn swoggled, if ever I thought to live to see the day when I should '_sculp_' a Christian man; but there it is, you see; I left his head as clean as a peeled onion." "But how? and when? and who was your antagonist in this frolic?" "Frolic!" exclaimed Damon; "well, now, it's what I would call a regular row; I never saw a prettier knock down and drag out in all the days of my life, even in old Kentuck." "But do tell me," said Lamar, "was anybody seriously hurt?" "There was several chaps in the circus last night with their heels uppermost, besides them suple chaps on the horses; I can tell you that."