|DOWN at Gunnison last week a large, select ball was given in a hall,
one end of which was partitioned off for sleeping rooms. A young man
who slept in one of these rooms, and who felt grieved because he had not
been invited, and had to roll around and suffer while the glad throng
tripped the light bombastic toe, at last discovered a knot-hole in
the partition through which he could watch the giddy multitude. While
peeping through the knot-hole, he discovered that one of the dancers,
who had an aperture in the heel of his shoe and another in his sock to
correspond, was standing by the wall with the ventilated foot near the
knot-hole. It was but the work of a moment to hold a candle against this
exposed heel until the thick epidermis had been heated red hot. Then
there was a wail that rent the battlements above and drowned the blasts
of the music. There was a wild scared cry of "fire": a frightened
throng rushing hither and thither, and then, where mirth and music and
rum had gladdened the eye and reddened the cheek a moment ago, all was
still save the low convulsive titter of a scantily clad man, as he lay
on the floor of his donjon tower and dug his nails in the floor.