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However, I found a bed not occupied by anyone else, but of my bedding there was not a sign. So I stretched out on the petate of my bed, only to wake up later shivering with cold, which I tried to remedy by fishing around for cover in a pile of straw mats, from which I extracted what turned out in the morning to be a jusi table-cloth, through which you could have shot straws.
"It was the same programme as the day before. After a while we heard the explosion and at twilight went down to the boat, from which we scraped enough of the cook for a funeral. "The carpenter and I stuck it out two days more, then we drew straws for it and it was his turn.
We all glided out, silently, and stood on the bank, our horrified eyes wandering back and forth from each other's countenances to the water. 'Somebody must go down and see! Yes, that was plain; but nobody wanted that grisly task. 'Draw straws! So we did with hands which shook so, that we hardly knew what we were about. The lot fell to me, and I went down.
So this itinerant maiden ever yawns amid scenes of splendor, and, from time immemorial, has sighed for lofts, garrets, and such humble places as Straws' earthly abode. At the present time, however, Straws was alone. This eccentric but lovely young lady had not deigned to visit him that day.
In its simplest form, the game consisted, in separating the heap of straws into two parts, one of which each player took, and he whose pile contained the odd number of straws was the winner. Before the division was made the straws were subjected to a manipulation, somewhat after the manner of shuffling cards.
But she really was lost in a gutter. "I am too fine for this world," said the darning-needle, as she lay in the gutter; "but I know who I am, and that is always some comfort." So the darning-needle kept up her proud behavior, and did not lose her good humor. Then there floated over her all sorts of things, chips and straws, and pieces of old newspaper.
This foolish secret pride, this nobility of soul perpetually misunderstood and wounded by Grandet, ruled the whole conduct of the wife. Madame Grandet was attired habitually in a gown of greenish levantine silk, endeavoring to make it last nearly a year; with it she wore a large kerchief of white cotton cloth, a bonnet made of plaited straws sewn together, and almost always a black-silk apron.
They sent for me to come to the library, where they were proposing to hold a meeting. I went over, and found that their project was to get me to withdraw in favor of Swett, and I declined. But I said I would "draw straws," or assent to any other fair means that could be found by which it was to be settled who was to be the nominee of the party.
Soon we were in front of the provost marshal's office. But he was not there, and no one knew where he was. After a long search, in accordance with my plea, some of the guards discovered and brought him back, reeling, with his head of long hair thoroughly decorated with feathers and straws.
The convict life in Tasmania was so unendurable, and suicide so difficult to accomplish that once or twice despairing men got together and drew straws to determine which of them should kill another of the group this murder to secure death to the perpetrator and to the witnesses of it by the hand of the hangman!
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