I DO know the President of the Council.

Even in my old age he has once or twice come to visit me, for he and I used to be schoolfellows, and to go climbing walls together.
Yes, him I do know.

Shall I write him a letter ?" "By all means." "Yes, him I know well, for we were friends together at school." Over Plushkin's wooden features there had gleamed a ray of warmth--a ray which expressed, if not feeling, at all events feeling's pale reflection.

Just such a phenomenon may be witnessed when, for a brief moment, a drowning man makes a last re-appearance on the surface of a river, and there rises from the crowd lining the banks a cry of hope that even yet the exhausted hands may clutch the rope which has been thrown him--may clutch it before the surface of the unstable element shall have resumed for ever its calm, dread vacuity.

But the hope is short-lived, and the hands disappear.