This was unreasonable, and I told
him so in a speech of some length. He replied, but with an evident
misunderstanding of my ideas upon the subject. I accordingly grew
angry, and told him in plain words, that he was a fool, that he had
committed an ignoramus e-clench-eye, that his notions were mere
insommary Bovis, and his words little better than an
ennemywerrybor'em. With this he appeared satisfied, and I resumed my
contemplations.
It might have been half an hour after this altercation when, as I
was deeply absorbed in the heavenly scenery beneath me, I was startled
by something very cold which pressed with a gentle pressure on the
back of my neck. It is needless to say that I felt inexpressibly
alarmed. I knew that Pompey was beneath my feet, and that Diana was
sitting, according to my explicit directions, upon her hind legs, in
the farthest corner of the room. What could it be? Alas! I but too
soon discovered. Turning my head gently to one side, I perceived, to
my extreme horror, that the huge, glittering, scimetar-like
minute-hand of the clock had, in the course of its hourly
revolution, descended upon my neck. There was, I knew, not a second to
be lost. I pulled back at once- but it was too late. There was no
chance of forcing my head through the mouth of that terrible trap in
which it was so fairly caught, and which grew narrower and narrower
with a rapidity too horrible to be conceived.
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