the whole bed was uncovered. I shook the blankets and counterpane and looked under the pillow, but all in vain, not a glimpse of a flea was visible. It was a clean, well-aired bed, so, feeling now rather sleepy, I covered myself up with the bed-clothes and blew out the light, with every prospect of a good night's rest before me. But, alas! how soon was I undeceived. Hardly had I gone off into my first sleep, when I was suddenly awoke from a delicious dream with a sharp, sudden pang, like a stab or the tooth of some venomous reptile in the fleshy part of my thigh. I started up in horror, hardly able to restrain a slight shriek. The night was dark and stormy, the winds howled without, and the old mansion shook from its foundations. "The Phantom Flea!" I muttered, horrified, and reached out my hand for my tinder-box; but before I was able to strike a light, I experienced a second sharp stinging pain in the small of the back, then another in the calf of my leg. By this time I had succeeded in striking a light. Some scorpion, I thought. So, lighting my candle, I commenced a rigid search.

At length I caught sight of the vile insect. There it was, sure enough, a flea, and no mistake about it, but what a monster! It must have been the size of a coffee bean. What legs! How it hopped from one side of the bed to the other!

Well, gentlemen, I used my utmost endeavours to capture it; and here let me add that I am generally rather expert at that sort of game, having had some practice in my time; but, would you believe it, gentlemen, it foiled all my best endeavours, although I kept it in sight all the time. I was a full hour and a half engaged in this undignified chase. The "Phantom Flea" defied me to the last. What was I to do? I couldn't sit up all night hunting a flea, and yet to get any sleep with such a monster in the bed was equally impossible.

Suddenly I recollected that I had a small bottle of opium in my waistcoat pocket, which I had purchased the day before to relieve a toothache that I had caught from sitting in the theatre at one end of a row of stalls, close to the door, which kept continually opening and shutting. I rose and searched for the bottle, and swallowed more, perhaps, than under ordinary circumstances would have been good for me, got into bed again, and blew out the light.

The first sensation I experienced was that of a deliciously gradual dropping off to sleep, but the keenness of my senses was increased a hundred-fold. My memory and my imagination bordered on the abnormal. Every event in my life, from the cradle up to the present moment, rose before my mind in microscopic 

 Prev. P 15/254 next