What happened that night may be better understood by reading the following page from my diary:
"It is midnight, halfway between Christmas eve and Christmas morning. For the last three hours I have been looking all over town for Mac. I went to the stable at nine o'clock to fill his stockings, and lo! he was missing. Where he can possibly be and how he got there is beyond my power of conception. I found the lock in the barn door unbroken, but scratched about the keyhole, as if it had been picked. The landlord and the stableman are of the opinion that Union College boys have stolen the donkey and hidden him, just for mischief. In my rambles I failed to detect a sign of any student. A squad of volunteers from among the hotel guests, armed to the teeth and carrying lanterns, were kind enough to go with me donkey hunting, but nothing more than a few ominous traces of Mac's stubborn resistance did we discover. A tuft of donkey hair and a gory human tooth were picked off the barn floor, and also, just outside, a section of the seat of a man's trousers, all of which indicates that the donkey is the unwilling prisoner of a band of wags.
"Going down Fifth Street to Union, we detected Mac's little foot-prints and a college society pin. Just beyond, I found another lock of hair, this time human, indicating some football fiend had parted with a portion of his mane. A torn cravat, a finger of a kid glove, and a piece of human flesh resembling part of a nose, were noted by different members of the posse. Thence on, we traced with much difficulty my donkey's hoof-marks a mile or more into the suburbs, where we lost them. It was then 11:30 P. M. A concensus of opinion resulted in the verdict that at that point the animal had been put in a sleigh and drawn to some hiding place and that further search that night was useless. I am now going to retire, and trust to luck for Mac A'Rony's safe return to-morrow."
When I went to breakfast Christmas morning, I amused myself while my order was being filled by perusing the Schenectady "Daily Tantrims." You may imagine my astonishment upon reading the following:
GRAND OPENING
Of the Canal Skating Rink.
Greatest Social Function of the Season.
College Boys and Society There.
A Donkey on Skates.
"Those who were not 'let in' to the private ball given at the new Canal Ice Rink on Christmas Eve by the Union boys who remained here over night to enjoy the Holidays, missed a rare and novel entertainment. It proved to be a side-splitting as well as an ice-breaking affair. Carefully laid plans were successfully carried out, and the diminutive donkey belonging to the quixotic traveler, Prof. Pythagoras Pod, became the guest of honor at the first rink party of the season. The jackass seemed to relish the sport immensely. Two pairs of skates were securely buckled on his feet and, declining the proffered assistance, at once the precocious tyro struck out in four several directions at once, coming down on the not over thick ice kothump! on his Antartic pole, deluging four propositions of Euclid, seven principles of unnatural philosophy, and three dozen young men and women.