"Oh! you were in the circus, were you?" "Yes; and there was a rip-roaring sight of slight o'hand and tumblin work there, besides their ground and lofty tumblin they had in the handbills." "You did some of the ground tumbling yourself then?" asked Lamar. "No, I did the slight o'hand work, as you may see by the skin that's gone off these four marrow-bones." "And who did the ground tumbling?" asked Lamar. "There was a good deal done there last night; the chaps in the ring and the chaps in the pit all did a little at it; flummuck me if I didn't think the heels of the whole house would be uppermost before they were done; what an everlastin pity 'tis, these critters elbows ain't as suple as their heels." "Then you think all the people of Baltimore a little limber in the heels." "I can't say as to that; but I wish I may be hackled, if there was not so much flyin up of the heels there last night, that I was fidlin and tumblin all night in my sleep, jumpin through hoops, and tanglin my legs in their long red garters, which the circus riders jumped over; and then I thought they had my poor old horse, Pete Ironsides, jumpin over bars, and leapin through fiery balloons, until at last they smashed his head right into a tar barrel, and then maybe I didn't fly into a tear down snortin rage! I was crammed full of fight then, and so I got to slingin my arms about in my sleep, till I knocked out that head-board there,--then I woke up, and I wish I may be hanged if I didn't think it was all a dream; till I found that the forepart of my coat had run away from the tail, and that I had got an odd collar among my linen. And then on t'other hand I began to think it was all true, and rung the bell, and sent the nigger down to the stable to see if Pete had his head in a tar barrel sure enough; presently the nigger came back, grinen and giglin, and said Pete had gone to the country two hours ago; so I run the little nigger down stairs, and sent my old boots after him to get blacked; and as I was dodgin through that long entry there, I saw the bottles, and tumblers, and lemon-skins; so ho! said I, there's the mad dog that bit me last night." "Then you _began_ in a frolic at least," said Lamar. "Only a small breeze or so; a few tumblers of punch, made of that doubled and twisted Irish whiskey; it was none of your Kentuck low wines, run off at a singlin, for I have made many a barrel. It was as strong as _pison_, and it raised the Irish in me pretty quick, or rather old Kentuck, for I jumped up and kicked the table over, and broke things, afore I would have been cleverly primed with the low wines." "Were you drinking all alone?"