and wrath, half-buried in alien hair. Thus ended my hopes of the widow
by an accident which could not have been anticipated, to be sure, but
which the natural sequence of events had brought about.

Without despairing, however, I undertook the siege of a less
implacable heart. The fates were again propitious for a brief period,
but again a trivial incident interfered. Meeting my betrothed in an
avenue thronged with the elite of the city, I was hastening to greet
her with one of my best considered bows, when a small particle of some
foreign matter lodging in the corner of my eye rendered me for the
moment completely blind. Before I could recover my sight, the lady of
my love had disappeared--irreparably affronted at what she chose to
consider my premeditated rudeness in passing her by ungreeted. While I
stood bewildered at the suddenness of this accident (which might have
happened, nevertheless, to any one under the sun), and while I still
continued incapable of sight, I was accosted by the Angel of the Odd,
who proffered me his aid with a civility which I had no reason to
expect. He examined my disordered eye with much gentleness and skill,
informed me that I had a drop in it, and (whatever a "drop" was) took
it out, and afforded me relief.

I now considered it high time to die (since fortune had so determined
to persecute me), and accordingly made my way to the nearest river.
Here, divesting myself of my clothes (for there is no reason why we
cannot die as we were born), I threw myself headlong into the current;
the sole witness of my fate being a solitary crow that had been
seduced into the eating of brandy-saturated corn, and so had staggered
away from his fellows. No sooner had I entered the water than this
bird took it into his head to fly away with the most indispensable
portion of my apparel. Postponing, therefore, for the present, my