ABOUT BUYING A HORSE. 187 



most awful sound, as of a person struggling for life in a 

 choking fit. 



It lasts a few seconds, then ceases. 



It occurs to me, awaking, all at once, to vivid consciousness, 

 that this is my Aunt snoring. 



The last line of a nursery rhyme flashes across rile, " Let 

 us hope little Billy won't do it again." Substituting 

 " Aunty " for " Billy," the quotation is admirably adapted to 

 the present circumstances. 



Already I have had the dro\v'siness taken out of me by 

 merely this first snore. 



Happy Thought. — Subject for a picture — " He?' First 

 Snore.'" The picture should exhibit the intensity of //<?;■ 

 snore by the expression of his face. 



I should never have thought, but for this expression, that 

 one could have heard snoring so distinctly through a partition 

 ■which is, at least, a wall of lath and plaster. If I recollect 

 rightly, a thoroughgoing liar is proverbially described as one 

 who could " lie through a deal board or a brick wall." This 

 would suit a snorer of extraordinary powers. As the night 

 goes on, I am inclined to say of my Aunt, " She can snore 

 through a brick wall." 



If she w^ould only make her intervals longer between her 

 snores there might be some chance of my getting off to sleep 

 between the last note of snore Number One and the 

 commencement of the first bar of snore Number Tv/o. 



Thoughts while lying awake. — I've heard old nurses, and 

 people who, three hundred years since, would have been 



