father, who always loved you.” I faltered and gazed around, and as my wild and fatal eye balls rested on Mallett, he again cries out: “Judge Branch: Don’t you really think I had better jump out of the window?” Father said: “No, I guess not. Stephen will soon abjure his dreadful anger, and be himself again.” He then bathed my temples, and stroked my curly hair and fanned my fevered cheeks, and I slowly emerged from my protracted aberration, and took a seat, and father unlocked the door, and Mallett darted out like a cat from a dark closet, and scaled the stairs with a solitary stride, and I returned home with father. Gov. Fenner truly loved me, and deeply regretted the sad intelligence of the quarrel, and on the following day insisted on my immediate return to the Post Office, and threatened to kick Mallett and all the clerks into the street, because they had long plotted such infamous mischief to get me out of the office, and to effect, if possible, my earthly ruin. I sincerely thanked the Governor for his friendly feelings, and assured him that I could not return and dwell with happiness among such a gang of miserable wretches, when he honored me with an elegant donation, and expressed the warmest desire for my future welfare. Gov. Fenner told me, in the presence of my father, that he would request Gen. Jackson to remove his son-in-law as Post Master, if he did not instantly hurl every clerk into the street, who had conspired against me. But my father and myself besought the noble Governor to commit no rashness, as it would be impossible to conduct the affairs of the Post Office, in the sudden absence of all the experienced clerks. I then shook the Governor’s throbbing hands, and, as we parted, I am quite sure I saw a tear fall from his venerable and intellectual eyes, and I know that grateful and hallowed waters fell like equator rain from my pensive vision. I left for Andover, and entered Phillips’ Academy, in the Greek and Latin classes, where I formed a devoted friendship with Win. Augustus White, who was a poor youth, and a beneficiary of the Education Society, and who is now an Episcopal minister in Maryland. I left Andover for Boston, and caught the itch from a filthy bed at a hotel in Washington street. I went to Cambridge, and entered the law school of Judge Story and Professor Greenleaf. A law student from Providence asked me to gamble, and I won about $20 in cash, and he denounced me, because I would not gamble with him after he had lost all he had, and owed me $50. I told him that persons seldom paid gambling debts, and I could not stake cash against credit in a game of cards. I also told him that I would return the $20 I had won, and give him the $50 he owed me, if he would never ask me to gamble, when he flew into a fearful passion, and said I grossly insulted him. He strove to irritate me to blows, and I anticipated a scuffle, but he did not dare strike me, as he doubtless saw fatality and a pale sepulchre in my eyes. We had known each other nearly all our days, but dice and cards separated us for ever, and he is in the grave. News arrived at Cambridge of the great fire of 1835, and I went to New York, to see my brothers, and the desolation, and proceeded to Philadelphia, but my itch increased, and I returned with forced cars to Cambridge, and consulted Dr. Plympton, who gave me ointment, which I applied, and the itch suddenly disappeared, and commingled with my blood, and raised Beelzebub with my emotions. I felt cold, and made a rousing fire, and went to bed, and had a violent perspiration, and out popped the itch again like a porpoise, and made me scratch so hard and incessantly, that I could not sleep of nights, and I was in a horrible predicament, and I got alarmed, and went to Providence, and immediately to bed, as my physical energies were utterly exhausted, from loss of rest, and from my eternal scratching, and off I went into a thundering snore. My brother William arrived from New York during the night, and got into my bed, and I slept so soundly that he vainly strove to awake me. I told him in the morning that I had the itch, and he laughed heartily, and I tried to join him, but I could not. He soon returned to New York, and I to Cambridge, and in about a month, he wrote me that he had got the itch, and asked me what he should do to cure it. I told him to apply itch ointment externally, and to gently scratch the developments, or they would increase like fury, or a snow ball. He then wrote me that itch pimples had appeared between his fingers, and on the back of his hands, and desired to know what to do to screen them, or cure them quickly, and spare the mortification. I told him to wear gloves or mittens constantly as I did, and to pretend that he was learning the art of self-defence, and went to a boxing school so often that it began to seem natural to wear gloves or mittens without cessation, or through absence of mind. Brother Bill never troubled me again about his itch, and I was glad, as I did not like to commune of itch, even through correspondence with a brother, as my own itch required my unremitting attention. The students often asked me why I scratched my legs and back so much, and why I always had pimples in the rear of my hands, and between my fingers, and on my knuckles, and why I wore boxing gloves so much. I told them that I had the salt rheum that my dear mother gave me. I went to Andover, in a sleigh, with a student named Terry, who had a sweetheart in the suburbs of the town, with whom he lingered until late in the evening. On our return to Cambridge, we got lost in the woods, at midnight, and came near freezing. In our emergence from the forest, and while sharply turning a corner of the country road, we upset, and both were thrown with great violence, on the uneven snow and ice. Terry fell on his prominent, though handsome nose. The night was dark, and his hands were numb, and on applying his fingers to his nose, he could not feel it, and thought it had frozen, and broken, and gone, as blood flowed freely from where his nose ought to be, and once was, and in abject despair, (for Terry dearly loved his nose,) he exclaimed: “Branch! where are you?” “I am here.” “Well, do come here, for the Lord’s sake.” “What’s the matter, Terry?” “Branch, can you see my nose?” “No. It is so dark, I cannot see you. Where are you, Terry?” “Here.” We then found each other, and he besought me, in touching accents, to feel for his nose, and I did, and told him that I feared his nose was gone, as I could not feel it, nor could I, because my arms and fingers were so numb. Poor Terry wept bitterly, while I laughed into smothered hysterics. We got into the sleigh, and off we went towards Cambridge, with Terry moaning over the loss of his nose, and I laughing through the disguise of a cough or sneeze. On our arrival at his College room, I struck a match, and Terry rushed for the glass, and lo! his mangled nose was there, gleaming and streaming with icicles of blood, and the pale liquid of nature. He made a fire, and bathed his wounds, and melted his nosy icicles, and jumped and hopped and leaped with unwonted ecstacy. The previous cold and sudden heat of Terry’s fire irritated my itch, and I wanted to scratch my pimples, but dared not in Terry’s presence, and I put on my coat to go to my college apartment, to bathe my body with itch ointment. But Terry wanted me to sleep with him. He had a large feather bed, and the fire was blazing, and I was sure I would get into a perspiration, and give him the itch if I slept with him. So I declined. But he insisted, and locked the room, and hid the key. What to do I did not know. I dared not tell him I had the itch, but told him that I must go to my room, and get my lessons for the morrow, to which he would not listen. I had not applied ointment for fifteen hours, and I was anxious to do so that night, and made a warm appeal to Terry to unlock the door, but he