at the idea; said he never slept comfortably out of his hammock; declared that he quite missed his occasional punch on the head from the ship’s side; and ended by giving a most comical account of all the uncomfortable sensations he felt when he slept in a four-post bed.  The odd nature of one of the young sailor’s objections to sleeping on shore reminded my husband (as indeed it did me too) of the terrible story of a bed in a French gambling-house, which he once heard from a gentleman whose likeness he took.

“You’re laughing at me,” says honest Foul-weather Dick, seeing William turn toward me and smile.—­“No, indeed,” says my husband; “that last objection of yours to the four-post beds on shore seems by no means ridiculous to me, at any rate.  I once knew a gentleman, Dick, who practically realized your objection.”

“Excuse me, sir,” says Dick, after a pause, and with an appearance of great bewilderment and curiosity; “but could you put ‘practically realized’ into plain English, so that a poor man like me might have a chance of understanding you?”—­“Certainly!” says my husband, laughing.  “I mean that I once knew a gentleman who actually saw and felt what you say in jest you are afraid of seeing and feeling whenever you sleep in a four-post bed.  Do you understand that?” Foul-weather Dick understood it perfectly, and begged with great eagerness to hear what the gentleman’s adventure really was.  The dame, who had been listening to our talk, backed her son’s petition; the two girls sat down expectant at the half-cleared tea-table; even the farmer and his drowsy sons roused themselves lazily on the settle—­my husband saw that he stood fairly committed to the relation of the story, so he told it without more ado.

I have often heard him relate that strange adventure (William is the best teller of a story I ever met with) to friends of all ranks in many different parts of England, and I never yet knew it fail of producing an effect.  The farmhouse audience were, I may almost say, petrified by it.  I never before saw people look so long in the same direction, and sit so long in the same attitude, as they did.  Even the servants stole away from their work in the kitchen, and, unrebuked by master or mistress, stood quite spell-bound in the doorway to listen.  Observing all this in silence, while my husband was going on with his narrative, the thought suddenly flashed across me, “Why should William not get a wider audience for that story, as well as for others which he has heard from time to time from his sitters, and which he has hitherto only repeated in private among a few friends?  People tell stories in books and get money for them.  What if we told our stories in a book? and what if the book sold?  Why freedom, surely, from the one great anxiety that is now preying on us!  Money enough to stop at the farmhouse till William’s eyes are fit for work again!” I almost jumped up from my chair as my thought went on shaping itself in this manner.  When great men make wonderful discoveries, do they feel sensations like mine, I wonder?  Was Sir Isaac Newton within an ace of skipping into the air when he first found out the law of gravitation?  Did Friar Bacon long to dance when he lit the match and heard the first charge of gunpowder in the world go off with a bang?