MY ESCAPE FROM THE FIRE
It’s always a safe plan to look before you leap. I didn’t look before I leaped, with the result that jumping through a loophole in the wall at the rear of the barn, I found myself on alighting outside with the star-bespangled firmament above me, and—what do you think under me—I hardly like to say, but nevertheless it was a manure heap! I was booked to remain in this—perhaps more healthy than agreeable—predicament for some time; for, despite my struggles to regain liberty of thought and action, I could not extricate myself.