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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
homoeopathists. 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
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