House of Ellsworth
continued

At length I have endeavored to detail the circumstances attending this night in my own mind; my recollection, if the reader should find it peculiar, no doubt reflects the strangeness of the occasion, as my memory in this regard would remain the evening's sole inheritor. It is only now, several days elapsed, that I purpose to take up my pen and relate the harrowing ordeal as it occurred:

The evening was dark, and the gloam pressed heavy against the house. True!--famished--very, very dreadfully famished I had been; but witness how craftily I hastened my way to the kitchen; why will you say that I cannot find my way? The famine has only sharpened my senses--not destroyed--not dulled them. Above all was the sense of taste acute. I tasted all things in heaven and earth. I tasted many things in hell, and several in Congress. How, then, am I delirious? Hearken! and observe how healthily--how calmly I resolved to make a sandwich.

I steadied myself before the refrigerator door. Inside was cold, frightfully cold, like the tomb of Ann Coulter--how curious that life and warmth should be drawn from within! As the bell sounded the hour, I was perched over my plate like a jay, anticipating a fine repast. Not once did I rise to pace, rant or rave! I presided over the feast as a king might over a banquet--with grace and poise--do you mark me well? But no sooner than I had finished my plate than my attention was arrested by a banana. Ah-ha!--the banana, with its sugary, seedless pulp! But you should have seen me. How I strode to the fruit and handled its porous exterior. And then, with a glass of Vitamin D milk, how stealthily I retired to my chamber--quietly! oh, so very quietly--so not to disturb the sparkling, seamless garment of night that whispered throughout the house.

Oh-ho! And now how perfectly I was concealed within the city; if by some chance a visitor would call upon the house--some familiar plague of acquaintance--no answer would be issued forth from the darkness! I was perfectly small now--perfectly unobserved! Perhaps they would discern I was home; perhaps they would suspect it! For it is commonly understood that I am loathe to venture far from my books. It is hardly any secret. And yet they persist, like a terrible clockwork, never quitting me, scaring me half out of my wits at every hour, unceasingly as they materialize, unannounced, at my door.