“Good morning,” I replied, touched with sympathy for his misfortune, and reproaching myself for the mirth I had enjoyed at his expense—“Good morning, Mr. Sikes. I am very sorry for your loss, and hope you will have better luck in future.” “Oh, Major,” said he, “it ain’t the vally of the mule that I minds so much—though old Blaze was a monstrous handy cretur on the place. But thar’s my wife—what’ll she say when she sees me comin’ home in this here fix? Howsomedever, what can’t be cured must be indured, as the feller said when the monkey bit him.” “That’s the true philosophy,” I remarked, seeing that he endeavoured to take courage from the train of reasoning into which he had fallen; “and Mrs. Sikes should bear in mind that accidents _will_ happen, and be thankful that it’s no worse.” “To be sure she ought,” replied Sam, “but that ain’t the way with her—she don’t believe in accidents, nohow; and then she’s so howdacious unreasonable when she’s raised. But, she better not,” he continued, with a stern look as he spoke—“she better not come a cavortin’ ’bout me with any of her rantankerous carryin’s on this mornin’, for I ain’t in no humour nohow!” and he made a threatening gesture with his head, as much as to say he’d make the fur fly if she did. We parted at the gate, Sam for his home, and I for my bed; he sorely convinced that a “bad beginning” does not _always_ “make a good ending,” and I fully resolved that it should be my first and last FIRE-HUNT. XX. A PAIR OF SLIPPERS; OR, FALLING WEATHER. Whenever we look upon the crowded thoroughfare, or regard the large assembly, we are compelled to admit that the infinite variety of form in the human race contributes largely to the picturesque. The eye travels over the diversity of shape and size without fatigue, and renews its strength by turning from one figure to another, when, at each remove, it is sure to find a difference. Satiated with gazing at rotundity, it is refreshed by a glance at lathiness: and, tired with stooping to the lowly, it can mount like a bird to the aspiring head which tops a maypole.