When it was time to go the keeper, having learned from his son that I sold the pictures "to live on," begged me with tears to accept a quarter for the one I gave him, saying that he had a fair-sized garden besides the pittance he received for performing the duties of his humble office, whereas I had to depend on Providence for the keeping of myself and comrade on our long trip "round the world."
So Mac and I, thanking the good people for their kindnesses—for Mac's ever-acute appetite had not been overlooked by the thoughtful hostess—strode on in mud and darkness, slipping, spattering, and mumbling unintelligible and impolite words, and hoping against hope soon to arrive at some comfortable haven of rest.
A mile beyond we were greeted with loud applause issuing from a huge building to our left, which I took to be a girl's seminary, but which Mac insisted was a slaughter house. To be distinguished in the dark and tendered such an ovation quite tickled my vanity; but my less-conceited partner only brayed and trembled in the fear of being chased by a mad pig with its throat cut. When we had passed to a safe distance, I met a farmer in a wagon, and asked him the name of the illuminated building.
"The Rome State Insane Asylum," said the man.
At length, a dense mist gathered; then it began to sprinkle. I could scarcely distinguish Mac in the darkness. The road was tortuous, one vast river bed of mud, as untenable as quicksand. We first ran against a barbed-wire fence on one side, and a rail fence on the other, and finally, I plunged over boot-tops in a sluice, and might have drowned had I not held the reins and been pulled out by my unintentionally heroic comrade. My boots were new and didn't leak, and the mud and water remained in them.
If ever there was a moment on that overland "voyage" when I felt in prime condition to give it up, it was there and then. Still we struggled onward, and a few hundred yards ahead I discovered the faint light of a farm house, where I stopped to ask the distance to the next place we could secure shelter.
"'Bout four mile, I should jedge," said the farmer. I guessed as much, but it gave me a chance to sigh.
"Mercy! None nearer?" Just then Mac coughed, and approached.
"Nope. But wait! Be you the gentleman bound fer 'Frisco with a mule?"
"Verily so," I returned, while my partner brayed indignantly at being called a mule.