William Henry Randolph Simpson

“ I engaged the boy belonging to the house, for a trifling remuneration, to ring the door-bell at uncertain hours during the night, rush up to my room, and wake me with the information that the “house was on fire, from the basement upwards.” It was well I tried the experiment, for the first time he aroused me, in the confusion of the moment I tied the towels together, and was about to draw the towel-horse to the window and attempt my escape that way; an operation which, if I had been allowed to have carried out, would not, I have reason to believe, have been crowned with success. ”

“ Fortunately, the elderly gentleman was of a stout build, and could get very little out beyond his head and shoulders; but it required all the strength of myself and guard to pull him back again, and assure him that he must have been dreaming, otherwise the guard would most likely have lost his place, as the old gentleman did his temper, when he thought it was a hoax, and was going to write to the “Times,” and do all manner of things which irate old gentlemen are fond of doing. ”