There was something so weird in this baptism that I grew quite nervous.
Perhaps I was out of spirits.

A number of infinitesimal annoyances, winding up with the resolute persistency of the clerk at the stage office to enter my name misspelt on the waybill, had not predisposed me to cheerfulness.

The inmates of the Eureka House, from a social viewpoint, were not attractive.

There was the prevailing opinion--so common to many honest people--that a serious style of deportment and conduct toward a stranger indicates high gentility and elevated station.
Obeying this principle, all hilarity ceased on my entrance to supper, and general remark merged into the safer and uncompromising chronicle of several bad cases of diphtheria, then epidemic at Wingdam.

When I left the dining-room, with an odd feeling that I had been supping exclusively on mustard and tea leaves, I stopped a moment at the parlor door.