Page:In defense of Harriet Shelley, and other essays.djvu/212

 MARK TWAIN

mind you, the original smell stood up out of it just as sublime as ever fact is, these other smells just seemed to give it a better hold; and my, how rich it was ! I didn t make these reflections there there wasn t time made them on the platform. And breaking for the platform, Thompson got suffocated and fell; and before I got him dragged out, which I did by the collar, I was mighty near gone myself. When we revived, Thompson said dejectedly :

&quot;We got to stay out here, Cap. We got to do it. They ain t no other way. The Governor wants to travel alone, and he s fixed so he can outvote us.&quot;

And presently he added :

&quot;And don t you know, we re pisoned. It s our last trip, you can make up your mind to it. Typhoid fever is what s going to come of this. I feel it a-coming right now. Yes, sir, we re elected, just as sure as you re born.&quot;

We were taken from the platform an hour later, frozen and insensible, at the next station, and I went straight off into a virulent fever, and never knew anything again for three weeks. I found out, then, that I had spent that awful night with a harmless box of rifles and a lot of innocent cheese; but the news was too late to save me; imagination had done its work, and my health was permanently shattered ; neither Bermuda nor any other land can ever bring it back to me. This is my last trip ; I am on my way home to die.

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