518 AMERICAN AXGLER'S BOOK 



Having prepared ourselves for repose, out went the candle, and in came 



the musquitoes. N had brought with him a concoction prepared by 



some medical friend, which was to keep off these invidious insects. It 

 smelt strongly of spearmint and unclean oil. It worked, however, like ti 

 miracle, for the musquitoes would light on our faces, and their feet would 

 stick fast in the stuff — it had an extract of tar in it for that purpose — and 

 by the time a small troop were thus entrapped, then you had music. Anon 



you would hear H give a rousing clap, and with an expletive state : 



"There! I missed him!" So we rolled and tossed, till finally N 



burst out laughing, wanting to know if I was awake. 



Sleep being impossible, we lit our pipes, and sat up in bed to take a 

 smoke. Jokes were cracked, stories were told, and we made night, up in 

 that room, comparatively hideous. Next morning we learned that there 

 was a sick baby down stairs, and the supposition in the family was, that 

 our noise hadn't helped its colic any. 



That house will not soon fade from our memory. We slept in an attic, 

 where the roof slanted down over the heads of the beds, so that it was not 

 ten inches above the pillow ; the roof was innocent of lath, plaster, or any 

 of those little amenities that tend to make existence endurable. Rustic 

 ingenuity, upon the rafters over-head, had pinned, in the character of 

 wall-paper, certain emanations of the press, among which were the 

 Christian Herald, Boston Post, and New Hampshire Patriot. 



The strong point of this contrivance was, that all manner of bugs, 

 spiders, and other creeping things, seemed to assemble in convention in 

 the silent watches of the night, and essayed the climbing of these papers, 

 which being rather much inclined, rendered the task of the insects diffi- 

 cult ; but perseverance seemed to be a predominant trait, for all night long 

 we heard these reptiles scratching, scraping, and rustling up and down the 

 paper, at the agreeable distance of about a foot from our heads. Occa- 

 sionally a spider, more adventurous than the rest, would drop down by 

 his web, and alight on our faces, but he generally beat a precipitate 

 retreat. Then, too, there was a death-watch near the head-board, and he 

 kept up his dismal ticking as long as we were conscious. This death-watch 

 is an abominable nuisacce. Its regular, monotonous, unceasing beat, 

 heard in fearful proximity about eleven o'clock at night, when everybody 

 else is asleep, is enough to drive a nervous man crazy. I would rather 

 have six-pounders fired off at me all night. 



However, morning at last came, and we consulted as to what course 

 should be taken, whether to turn homeward and fish on our wav back, or 



