For, as I am pained to have to say, the Virginians had in those days the very irrational habit of drinking before dinner; and it was to this fact that Uncle Dick alluded in the somewhat figurative language recorded above. If the truth must be told, our venerable serving-man never doubted but that the Don stayed up-stairs simply because he was too drunk to come down. The facts were far otherwise. “Charley,” said I that night, as we were smoking our last pipe, “what was the matter with the Don to-day? Why was he not with us when we sat down to dinner?” “Because,” said Charley, lazily lolling back in his rocking-chair, and sighting with one eye through a ring of smoke that he had just projected from his mouth,—“because he was in his room.” “Another word, and Solomon’s fame perishes.” “It is a well-known physical law” (Charley used to avenge himself on me in private for his silence in general company),—“it is a well-known physical law,” said he, inserting his forefinger with great precision into the centre of the whirling ring, “that a body cannot occupy two—” “To be continued in our next. But why was he not punctual, as usual?” “Nothing simpler,—because he was behind time.” “Solon, Solon!” “Yes, Sir William Hamilton has well observed that it is positively unthinkable that the temporal limitations of two events occurring at different times should be identical. Let’s have another pipe.” Charley had forced me to change the subject; but I contrived to make the change not very satisfactory to him. “By the way,” I began, “what were you and the charming Alice saying to one another on your way from the landing to-day?” Charley laid his halt-filled pipe on the table and gave a frightful yawn. “Let’s go to bed,” said he, and immediately began to doff his clothes with surprising swiftness. “Two bodies,” said I, striking a match, “cannot”—Charley kicked off one boot—“occupy the same space”—off flew the other; “but, as Sir William hath well put it,—or was it some other fellow?”—and leaning against the end of the mantel-piece, and poising myself on my elbow, I assumed a thoughtful attitude,—“two bodies are sometimes fond of being very close together. Why this sudden and uncontrollable somnolency? Were we not to have another pipe?” But not another word could I get out of Charley; and nearly four years passed by before he gave me the account (which I will now lay before the reader) of what he saw that day.