"Why," he said, "is a mouse that spins?"
He then paused as though awaiting my reply, and when I confessed myself unable to hazard an answer, or even to understand so peculiar a problem, with a great discordant guffaw he said:
"Why, the higher, the fewer!"
Upon coming here I cogitated the matter deeply, but I am as yet far from a solution. Why is a mouse that spins? And if so, what does it spin? Patently the query is incomplete. And what possible bearing can comparative altitude as contrasted with the comparative infrequency of a species have upon the peculiarities of a mouse addicted to spinning?
I shall now to bed, dismissing all thoughts of a certain boorish individual from my mind.
May the Twenty-Fourth.—He lingers on—the person Pomeroy. It developed this forenoon that he had succeeded in extorting from Miss Hamm a promise to permit him to call this evening. I can only assume that through goodness of heart and a desire to avoid wounding any one she again consented to receive him at her home.
This afternoon, in thoughtful mood not untinged with vague repinings, my footsteps carried me, unwittingly as it were, to that beetling promontory from which our peaceful hamlet derives its name. For long I stood upon the crest of that craggy eminence wherefrom, so tradition tells us, a noble young chieftain of the aborigines who once populated this locality, being despairful of winning the hand of a fair maid of a neighbouring but hostile tribe, flung himself in suicidal frenzy adown the cliff to be dashed into minute fragments upon the cruel rocks below. Meditating upon the fate of this ill-starred red man, I communed with mine own inner consciousness. I asked myself the question: "Did you, Fibble, emulate the example of that despondent Indian youth and leap headlong from this peak, who in all this careless world other than your Great-Aunt Paulina would bemoan your piteous end? Who would come to place with reverent, sorrowing hands the tribute of a floral design such as a Broken Column or a Gate Ajar upon your lowly bier? Ah, who indeed?"
It was with difficulty that I tore myself away from a spot whose history so well accorded with the dismal trend of my thoughts. Presently, passing through a leafy lane leading back to the village, I espied at some distance in advance of me a couple walking together and apparently engaged in engrossing conversation. A second glance served to inform me that one of the pair was Miss Hamm and the other the insufferable Pomeroy. In a fit of petulance for which I am unable to account, unless it be due to my displeasure that he should continue to press his unwelcome attentions upon a young woman so immeasurably his superior, I dashed my eyeglasses upon the earth, thereby breaking the right lens. Yet I count the damage as naught, nor do I regret giving way to so violent an exhibition of temper.
To-night, finding the seclusion of my study dispiriting, I went forth upon a long and purposeless walk beneath the stars. Through chance I found myself, at or about eleven o'clock, in the vicinity of Mr. Hector Hamm's place of residence. Aimlessly lingering here in the shadow of the trees, I soon espied Pomeroy issuing from the gate of the residence and making off, whistling gaily as he went. He disappeared in the darkness, still whistling in a loud and vulgar manner. I could almost wish he might be choked by his own whistling. As for myself, I never whistle.
In this mood I have returned here to pen these lines. I fear me I shall sleep but ill the night, for distracting and gloomy thoughts race through my brain. I feel myself not to be myself. I wonder why?