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 :
"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."
And presently he added :
"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."
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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