The gleeful expression faded instantly. "See here," he said seriously, laying his hand with a warning gesture on my arm, the ivory knob popping out of the sponge-bag. "Don't yer never take no sleep in ther daytime; that's suicide. An' if yer sleep after eatin', that's murder. Look at me. Kinder peaked, ain't I? Stummic gone, throat busted, mouth caved in; but I'm seventy-five, ain't I? An' I ain't a wreck yet, am I? An' a-goin' to Old P'int Cumfut, ain't we, me an' Mommie, who's sixty---- Never mind, Mommie. I won't give it away"--with a sly wink at me. The old woman looked relieved. "Now jist s'pose I'd sat all my life on my back stoop, ha'f awake, an' ev'ry time I eat, lie down an' go ter sleep. Waal, yer'd never bin talkin' to-night to old Jeb Walters. They'd 'a' bin fertilizin' gardin truck with him. I've seen more'n a dozen of my friends die thet way--busted on this back porch snoozin' business. Fust they git loggy 'bout ther gills; then their knees begin ter swell; purty soon they're hobblin' round on er cane; an' fust thing they know they're tucked away in er number thirteen coffin, an' ther daisies a-bloomin' over 'em. None er that fur me. Come, Mommie, we'll turn in." When the boat, next morning, touched the pier at Old Point, I met the old fellow and his wife waiting for the plank to be hauled aboard. "Did you sleep?" I asked. "Sleep? Waal, I could, p'rhaps, if I knowed ther ways aboard this steamboat. Ther come er nigger to my room 'bout midnight, and wanted ter know if I was ther gentleman that had lost his carpet-bag--he had it with him. Waal, of course I warn't; and then 'bout three, jist as I tho't I was dozin' off agin, ther come ther dangdest poundin' the nex' room ter mine ye ever heard. Mommie, she said 'twas fire, but I didn't smell no smoke. Wrong room agin. Feller nex' door was to go ashore in a scow with some dogs and guns. They'd a-slowed down and was waitin', an' they couldn't wake him up. Mebbe I'll git some sleep down ter Old P'int Cumfut, but I ain't spectin' nuthin'. By, by." And he disappeared down the gang plank. THE MAN WITH THE EMPTY SLEEVE I The Doctor closed the book with an angry gesture and handed it to me as I lay in my steamer chair, my eyes on the tumbling sea. He had read every line in it. So had P. Wooverman Shaw Todd, Esquire, whose property it was, and who had announced himself only a moment before as heartily in sympathy with the pessimistic views of the author, especially in those chapters which described domestic life in America. The Doctor, who has a wrist of steel and a set of fingers steady enough to adjust a chronometer, and who, though calm and silent as a stone god when over an operating table, is often as restless and outspoken as a boy when something away from it touches his heartstrings, turned to me and said:--