yet with an air of conscious power, he handed his MS. to the devil in waiting, and then, walking leisurely home, retired, with ineffable dignity to bed.
Meantime the devil, to whom the copy was entrusted, ran upstairs to his “case,” in an unutterable hurry, and forthwith made a commencement at “setting” the MS. “up.”
In the first place, of course—as the opening word was “So,”—he made a plunge into the capital S hole and came out in triumph with a capital S . Elated by this success, he immediately threw himself upon the little- o box with a blindfold impetuosity—but who shall describe his horror when his fingers came up without the anticipated letter in their clutch? who shall paint his astonishment and rage at perceiving, as he rubbed his knuckles, that he had been only thumping them to no purpose, against the bottom of an empty box. Not a single little- o was in the little- o