The stile was not very high, like Mr. Lord’s—nor yet very low, like
      that of Mr. Lord’s reviewers, but upon the whole I made sure that he would
      clear it. And then what if he did not?—ah, that was the question—what
      if he did not? “What right,” said I, “had the old gentleman to make any
      other gentleman jump? The little old dot-and-carry-one! who is he? If he
      asks me to jump, I won’t do it, that’s flat, and I don’t care who the
      devil he is.” The bridge, as I say, was arched and covered in, in a very
      ridiculous manner, and there was a most uncomfortable echo about it at all
      times—an echo which I never before so particularly observed as when
      I uttered the four last words of my remark. But what I said, or what I thought, or what I heard, occupied only an
      instant. In less than five seconds from his starting, my poor Toby had
      taken the leap. I saw him run nimbly, and spring grandly from the floor of
      the bridge, cutting the most awful flourishes with his legs as he went up. I saw him high in the air, pigeon-winging it to admiration just over the
      top of the stile; and of course I thought it an unusually singular thing
      that he did not continue to go over. But the whole leap was the affair of
      a moment, and, before I had a chance to make any profound reflections,
      down came Mr. Dammit on the flat of his back, on the same side of the
      stile from which he had started. At the same instant I saw the old
      gentleman limping off at the top of his speed, having caught and wrapt up
      in his apron something that fell heavily into it from the darkness of the
      arch just over the turnstile. At all this I was much astonished; but I had
      no leisure to think, for Dammit lay particularly still, and I concluded
      that his feelings had been hurt, and that he stood in need of my
      assistance. I hurried up to him and found that he had received what might
      be termed a serious injury. The truth is, he had been deprived of his
      head, which after a close search I could not find anywhere; so I
      determined to take him home and send for the homœopathists. In the
      meantime a thought struck me, and I threw open an adjacent window of the
      bridge, when the sad truth flashed upon me at once. About five feet just
      above the top of the turnstile, and crossing the arch of the foot-path so
      as to constitute a brace, there extended a flat iron bar, lying with its
      breadth horizontally, and forming one of a series that served to
      strengthen the structure throughout its extent. With the edge of this
      brace it appeared evident that the neck of my unfortunate friend had come
      precisely in contact. He did not long survive his terrible loss. The homœopathists did not give
      him little enough physic, and what little they did give him he hesitated
      to take. So in the end he grew worse, and at length died, a lesson to all
      riotous livers. I bedewed his grave with my tears, worked a bar sinister
      on his family escutcheon, and, for the general expenses of his funeral,
      sent in my very moderate bill to the transcendentalists. The scoundrels
      refused to pay it, so I had Mr. Dammit dug up at once, and sold him for
      dog’s meat. THOU ART THE MAN


      I will now play the Oedipus to the Rattleborough enigma. I will expound to
      you—as I alone can—the secret of the enginery that effected
      the Rattleborough miracle—the one, the true, the admitted, the
      undisputed, the indisputable miracle, which put a definite end to
      infidelity among the Rattleburghers and converted to the orthodoxy of the
      grandames all the carnal-minded who had ventured to be sceptical before. This event—which I should be sorry to discuss in a tone of
      unsuitable levity—occurred in the summer of 18—. Mr. Barnabas
      Shuttleworthy—one of the wealthiest and most respectable citizens of
      the borough—had been missing for several days under circumstances
      which gave rise to suspicion of foul play. Mr. Shuttleworthy had set out
      from Rattleborough very early one Saturday morning, on horseback, with the
      avowed intention of proceeding to the city of ——, about fifteen miles
      distant, and of returning the night of the same day. Two hours after his
      departure, however, his horse returned without him, and without the
      saddle-bags which had been strapped on his back at starting. The animal
      was wounded, too, and covered with mud. These circumstances naturally gave
      rise to much alarm among the friends of the missing man; and when it was
      found, on Sunday morning, that he had not yet made his appearance, the
      whole borough arose en masse to go and look for his body. The foremost and most energetic in instituting this search was the bosom
      friend of Mr. Shuttleworthy—a Mr. Charles Goodfellow, or, as he was
      universally called, “Charley Goodfellow,” or “Old Charley Goodfellow.”
       Now, whether it is a marvellous coincidence, or whether it is that the
      name itself has an imperceptible effect upon the character, I have never
      yet been able to ascertain; but the fact is unquestionable, that there
      never yet was any person named Charles who was not an open, manly, honest,
      good-natured, and frank-hearted fellow, with a rich, clear voice, that did
      you good to hear it, and an eye that looked you always straight in the
      face, as much as to say: “I have a clear conscience myself, am afraid of
      no man, and am altogether above doing a mean action.” And thus all the
      hearty, careless, “walking gentlemen” of the stage are very certain to be
      called Charles. Now, “Old Charley Goodfellow,” although he had been in Rattleborough not
      longer than six months or thereabouts, and although nobody knew any thing
      about him before he came to settle in the neighborhood, had experienced no
      difficulty in the world in making the acquaintance of all the respectable
      people in the borough. Not a man of them but would have taken his bare
      word for a thousand at any moment; and as for the women, there is no
      saying what they would not have done to oblige him. And all this came of
      his having been christened Charles, and of his possessing, in consequence,
      that ingenuous face which is proverbially the very “best letter of
      recommendation.”


      I have already said that Mr. Shuttleworthy was one of the most respectable
      and, undoubtedly, he was the most wealthy man in Rattleborough, while “Old
      Charley Goodfellow” was upon as intimate terms with him as if he had been
      his own brother.