I nor my friend had a penny.  We went to Hittle’s, and there I was successful in an attempt to get a quart of whisky, which we at once proceeded to mix with the Hostetter article already burning up the lining of our stomachs.  The effect was not long in appearing, for in a little while we were both very drunk, and I in particular was in the condition best described as howling, crazy drunk.  We stopped at a house to light our cigars—­for of course we both smoked and chewed tobacco—­and as my friend did not feel like getting out, I reeled into the kitchen and picked up a shovelful of coals, which I lifted so near my mouth that I scorched my hair and burnt my face, and, worse than all, singed the faint suggestion of a mustache that was visible by the aid of a microscope, on my upper lip.  While I was engaged in lighting my cigar, a large dog—­a tall, lean, much-ribbed, lank and hungry-looking hound—­went out to the sleigh, and my friend induced him to accept passage with us; so when I got back to my seat it was proposed that the hound should accompany us.  I have often wondered since if he was not heartily ashamed of being seen in our company that day; but we made a martyr of him all the same.

We drove off with a succession of whoops and yells, and carried the hound in front.  Our first halt was at Falmouth, where we ordered oysters.  The room in which we sat at table was quite small, and a large stove whose sides were red with heat made it uncomfortably hot—­especially for us who were already in a sultry state.  I had not sat at the table a minute when I fell from my chair against the stove.  My leg struck a hinge of the door, and as my friend was too much overcome to realize my condition, I lay there until the hinge burnt a hole through the leg of my pantaloons and then into the flesh.  I carry a scar to-day in memory of that time, and the scar is about three inches long.  The burn was over half an inch in depth.  God only knows what might have been the final result had not assistance soon come in the person of the owner of the house.  He called for help, and as soon as it arrived we were placed in our sleigh, and by a kind of instinct drove to Fairview.  It was dark by the time we got into Fairview, but we contrived to get our horse within the stable and that unfortunate hound into a corn-crib, in which durance he howled so vigorously that the wild winds which whistled and shrieked around the barn could not be heard for him.  His complaining lasted all night, and I do not think any one within a mile of the crib slept that night, my friend and myself excepted.  Ay, we slept—­slept as I have so often slept since—­a slumber as deep and oblivious as death—­a drunken sleep, from which we awoke to suffer hell’s tortures so justly merited by our conduct.  I awoke with a throbbing, aching heart, but by slow degrees did I become conscious that I had been somewhere in a sleigh and done something either very desperate or very foolish, or both.  At first my mind was so