Numberless were the tricks he played off with this nose. Once he
walked through the streets of - -, with this proboscis attached to
his face. "What a nose! Look at the man with the nose!" cried all
the boys in the street. A party of Irish emigrants passed at the
moment. The men, with the courtesy natural to their nation, forbore
to laugh in the gentleman's face; but after they had passed, Tom
looked back, and saw them bent half double in convulsions of mirth.
Tom made the party a low bow, gravely took off his nose, and put it
in his pocket.
The day after this frolic, he had a very severe fit of the ague, and
looked so ill that I really entertained fears for his life. The hot
fit had just left him, and he lay upon his bed bedewed with a cold
perspiration, in a state of complete exhaustion.
"Poor Tom," said I, "he has passed a horrible day, but the worst
is over, and I will make him a cup of coffee." While preparing it,
Old Satan came in and began to talk to my husband. He happened to
sit directly opposite the aperture which gave light and air to
Tom's berth. This man was disgustingly ugly. He had lost one eye
in a quarrel.
