In our own land, O my orthodox-minded father, where the unfailing resources of innumerable bands of dragons, spirits, vampires, ghouls, shadows, omens, and thunderstorms are daily enlisted to carry into effect the pronouncements of an appointed destiny, we have many historical examples of the inexorably converging legs of coincidence, but none, I think, more impressively arranged than the one now descending this person’s brush. We had scarcely reposed ourselves, and taken from the hands of an awaiting slave the vessels of thrice-potent liquid which in this Island is regarded as the indispensable accompaniment to every movement of existence, when a third person entered the room, and seating himself at a table some slightly removed distance away, lowered his head and abandoned himself to a display of most lavish dejection. “That poor cuss doesn’t appear to be holiday-making,” remarked the sincerely-compassionate person at my side, after closely observing the other for a period; and then, moved by the overpowering munificence of his inward nature, he called aloud, “Say, stranger, you seem to have got it thickly in the neck. Is it family affliction or the whisky of the establishment?” At these affably-intentioned words the stranger raised his eyes quickly, with an indication of not having up to that time been aware of our presence. “Sir,” he exclaimed, approaching to a spot where he could converse with a more enhanced facility, “when I loosened the restraint of an overpowering if unmanly grief, I imagined that I was alone, for I would have shunned even the most flattering sympathy, but your charitably-modulated voice invites confidence. The one before you is the most contemptible, left-handed, and disqualified outcast in creation, and he is now making his way towards the river, while his widow will be left to take in washing, his infant son to vend evening printed leaves, and his graceful and hitherto highly secluded daughters to go upon the stage.” “Say, stranger,” interposed this person, by no means unwilling to engrave upon his memory this newly-acquired form of greeting, “the emotion is doubtless all-pressing, but in my ornate and flower-laden tongue we have a salutation, ‘Slowly, slowly; walk slowly,’ which seems to be of far-seeing application.” “That’s so,” remarked the one by my side. “Separate it with the teeth, inch by inch.”