At last, when we were approaching Leigh Street at a furious pace, and the horses were turning into it, a well-meaning man rushed, with a loud “whoa,” at the horse nearest him, at the same time belaboring him with his umbrella; and this producing an extra burst of speed, the carriage made the turn literally on two wheels; so that, in momentary expectation of an upset, I instinctively released my hold on Alice’s shoulder and seized the edge of my seat; while the girls were so frightened that Alice sprang up, and, with a wild cry, threw her arms around my neck, Lucy, at the same time, seizing my right arm. The two girls pulling down upon me with all the strength of panic-terror, there was no help for it. My heels flew up in the air, my legs assuming the shape of a gigantic V. Picture to yourself, gentle reader, Mr. Fat Whacker moving down Leigh Street in this alphabetical order! Even had I not been throttled almost to suffocation, I believe my face would have been red with shame,—often a more powerful emotion than the fear of death. (I, for example, once saw an officer, while the battle of Spottsylvania Court-House was raging, blush, instead of turning pale, when a cannon-ball, rushing past him, annihilated the seat of his trousers.) And this is what I saw, looking through that V as a sharpshooter through the hind-sight of his rifle. I saw the Don and Laura cosily sitting on the carriage-block, with their backs towards us, the nurse standing near by. Molly saw us as soon as we turned into Leigh Street, and knowing the horses, I suppose (all recognition of me being, I must presume, out of the question), rushed up to the Don with a scream. He leaped to his feet, and, taking in the situation at a glance, sprang into the middle of the street. Perhaps the effect was intensified to me by the concentration of light wrought by the involuntary hindsight arrangement of my legs; possibly my perceptive faculties, stimulated by the situation, were unusually keen; but the bearing and look of the Don remain to this day indelibly impressed upon my memory. Hatless, he stood in the middle of the street, one leg advanced, and with both arms, after the fashion of ball-players, extended to the front. But it was his countenance that struck me most. His grimly-set lips, his distended nostrils, his brows intensely knit over his darkly glancing eyes, but, above all, his head, thrown back, and rocking to and fro in sympathy with the oscillations of the approaching team, gave him a look of ferocious disdain. It is with just such a look, I can imagine, that a lion, famished and desperate, after long and vain hunting of giraffe or gazelle, prepares to spring, from his tangled ambuscade of rushes, upon the horns of an approaching bull. What must be done, saith his mighty heart, must be done—and done bravely. ’Twas Milton’s Satan stood there!