I then forgot everything for several minutes, and my friend tells me I rolled about as if very faint and weak.  He also informs me that the first thing I did was to fall against him, asking if I looked seedy.  He most wisely answered, “No, you look very well.”  I don’t think he thought so, for his own face was as white as a ghost; I recollect this much.  He tells me my face was of a greenish-yellow color.  After walking or rather staggering along for some minutes, I gradually recovered my senses and steered for the nearest chemist’s shop.  Rushing in, I asked for eau de luce.  Of course he had none, but my eye caught the words “Spirit, ammon. co.,” or hartshorn, on a bottle.  I reached it down myself, and pouring a large quantity into a tumbler with a little water, both of which articles I found on a soda-water stand in the shop, drank it off, though it burnt my mouth and lips very much.  Instantly I felt relief from the pain at the chest and head.  The chemist stood aghast, and on my telling him what was the matter, recommended a warm bath.  If I had then followed his advice these words would never have been placed on record.  After a second draught at the hartshorn bottle, I proceeded on my way, feeling very stupid and confused.  On arriving at my friend’s residence close by, he kindly procured me a bottle of brandy, of which I drank four large wine-glasses one after the other, but did not feel the least tipsy after the operation.  Feeling nearly well, I started on my way home, and then for the first time perceived a most acute pain under the nail of the left thumb:  this pain also ran up the arm.  I set to work to suck the wound, and then found out how the poison had got into the system.  About an hour before I examined the dead rat I had been cleaning the nail with a penknife, and had slightly separated the nail from the skin beneath.  Into this little crack the poison had got when I was scraping the rat’s skin to examine the wound.  How virulent, therefore, must the poison of the cobra be!  It had already been circulated in the body of the rat, from which I had imbibed it second-hand!

MY MONKEY JACKO

From ‘Curiosities of Natural History’

After some considerable amount of bargaining (in which amusing, sometimes animated, not to say exciting exhibition of talent, Englishmen generally get worsted by the Frenchmen, as was the case in the present instance), Jacko became transferred, chain, tail and all, to his new English master.  Having arrived at the hotel, it became a question as to what was to become of Jacko while his master was absent from home.  A little closet, opening into the wall of the bedroom, offered itself as a temporary prison.  Jacko was tied up securely—­alas! how vain are the thoughts of man!—­to one of the row of pegs that were fastened against the wall.  As the door closed on him his wicked eyes seemed to say, “I’ll do some mischief now;” and sure enough he did, for when I came back to release him, like AEneas,