"After that I grew more careful. I studied my disguises much more diligently. But after all, what could I do? Here I was, writing stories for my living and my reputation. I made a pretty sum enough, and worked hard enough to earn it. No tale, no money. Then every story that went from my workshop had to come up to the standard of my reputation, and there was a set of critics,—there is a set of critics now and everywhere,—that watch as narrowly for the decline of a man's reputation as ever a village half drowned out by an inundation watched for the falling of the waters. The fame I had won, such as it was, seemed to attend me,—not going before me in the shape of a woman with a trumpet, but rather following me like one of Actaeon's hounds, his throat open, ready to pull me down and tear me. What a fierce enemy is that which bays behind us in the voice of our proudest bygone achievement!

"But, as I said above, what could I do? I must write novels, and I must have characters. 'Then why not invent them?' asks some novice. Oh, yes! Invent them! You can invent a human being that in certain aspects of humanity will answer every purpose for which your invention was intended. A basket of straw, an old coat and pair of breeches, a hat which has been soaked, sat upon, stuffed a broken window, and had a brood of chickens raised in it,—these elements, duly adjusted to each other, will represent humanity so truthfully that the crows will avoid the cornfield when your scarecrow displays his personality. Do you think you can make your heroes and heroines,—nay, even your scrappy supernumeraries,—out of refuse material, as you made your scarecrow? You can't do it. You must study living people and reproduce them. And whom do you know so well as your friends? You will show up your friends, then, one after another. When your friends give out, who is left for you? Why, nobody but your own family, of course. When you have used up your family, there is nothing left for you but to write your autobiography.

"After my experience with my grand-aunt, I be came more cautious, very naturally. I kept traits of character, but I mixed ages as well as sexes. In this way I continued to use up a large amount of material, which looked as if it were as dangerous as dynamite to meddle with. Who would have expected to meet my maternal uncle in the guise of a schoolboy? Yet I managed to decant his characteristics as nicely as the old gentleman would have decanted a bottle of Juno Madeira through that long siphon which he always used when the most sacred vintages were summoned from their crypts to render an account of themselves on his hospitable board. It was a nice business, I confess, but I did it, and I drink cheerfully to that good uncle's memory in a glass of wine from his own cellar, which, with many other more important tokens of his good will, I call my own since his lamented demise.

"I succeeded so well with my uncle that I thought I would try a course of cousins. I had enough of them to furnish out a whole gallery of portraits. There was cousin 'Creeshy,' as we called her; Lucretia, more correctly. She was a cripple. Her left lower limb had had something happen to it, and she walked with a crutch. Her patience under her trial was very pathetic and picturesque, so to speak,—I mean adapted to the tender parts of a story; nothing could work up better in a melting paragraph. But I could not, of course, describe her particular infirmity; that would point her out at once. I thought of shifting the lameness to the right lower limb, but even that would be seen through. So I gave the young woman that stood for her in my story a lame elbow, and put her arm in a sling, and made her such a model of uncomplaining endurance that my grandmother cried over her as if her poor old heart would break. She cried very easily, my grandmother; in fact, she had such a gift for tears that I availed myself of it, and if you remember old Judy, in my novel 'Honi Soit' (Honey Sweet, the booksellers called it),—old Judy, the black-nurse,—that was my grandmother. She had various other peculiarities, which I brought out one by one, and saddled on to different characters. You see she was a perfect mine of singularities and idiosyncrasies. After I had used her up pretty well, I came dawn upon my poor relations. They were perfectly fair game; what better use could I put them to? I studied them up very carefully, and as there were a good many of them I helped myself freely. They lasted me, with occasional intermissions, I should say, three or four years. I had to be very careful with my poor relations,—they were as touchy as they could be; and as I felt bound to send a copy of my novel, whatever it might be, to each one of them,—there were as many as a dozen,—I took care to mix their characteristic features, so that, though each might suspect I meant the other, no one should think I meant him or her. I got through all my relations at last except my father and mother. I had treated my brothers and sisters pretty fairly, all except Elisha and Joanna. The truth is they both had lots of odd ways,—family traits, I suppose, but were just different enough from each other to figure separately in two different stories. These two novels made me some little trouble; for Elisha said he felt sure that I meant Joanna in one of them, and quarrelled with me about it; and Joanna vowed and declared that Elnathan, in the other, stood for brother 'Lisha, and that it was a real mean thing to make fun of folks' own flesh and blood, and treated me to one of her cries. She was n't handsome when she cried, poor, dear Joanna; in fact, that was one of the personal traits I had made use of in the story that Elisha found fault with.

"So as there was nobody left but my father and mother, you see for yourself I had no choice. There was one great advantage in dealing with them,—I knew them so thoroughly. One naturally feels a certain delicacy it handling from a purely artistic point of view persons who have been so near to him. One's mother, for instance: suppose some of her little ways were so peculiar that the accurate delineation of them would furnish amusement to great numbers of readers; it would not be without hesitation that a writer of delicate sensibility would draw her portrait, with all its whimsicalities, so plainly that it should be generally recognized. One's father is commonly of tougher fibre than one's mother, and one would not feel the same scruples, perhaps, in using him professionally as material in a novel; still, while you are employing him as bait,—you see I am honest and plain-spoken, for your characters are baits to catch readers with,—I would follow kind Izaak Walton's humane counsel about the frog you are fastening to your fish-hook: fix him artistically, as he directs, but in so doing I use him as though you loved him.'

"I have at length shown up, in one form and another, all my townsmen who have anything effective in their bodily or mental make-up, all my friends, all my relatives; that is, all my blood relatives. It has occurred to me that I might open a new field in the family connection of my father-in-law and mother-in-law. We have been thinking of paying them a visit, and I shall have an admirable opportunity of studying them and their relatives and visitors. I have long wanted a good chance for getting acquainted with the social sphere several grades below that to which I am accustomed, and I have no doubt that I shall find matter for half a dozen new stories among those connections of mine. Besides, they live in a Western city, and one doesn't mind much how he cuts up the people of places he does n't himself live in. I suppose there is not really so much difference in people's feelings, whether they live in Bangor or Omaha, but one's nerves can't be expected to stretch across the continent. It is all a matter of greater or less distance. I read this morning that a Chinese fleet was sunk, but I did n't think half so much about it as I did about losing my sleeve button, confound it! People have accused me of want of feeling; they misunderstand the artist-nature,—that is all. I obey that implicitly; I am sorry if people don't like my descriptions, but I have done my best. I have pulled to pieces all the persons I am acquainted with, and put them together again in my characters. The quills I write with come from live geese, I would have you know. I expect to get some first-rate pluckings from those people I was speaking of, and I mean to begin my thirty-ninth novel as soon as I have got through my visit."



IX. THE SOCIETY AND ITS NEW SECRETARY.

There is no use in trying to hurry the natural course of events, in a narrative like this. June passed away, and July, and August had come, and as yet the enigma which had completely puzzled Arrowhead Village and its visitors remained unsolved. The white canoe still wandered over the lake, alone, ghostly, always avoiding the near approach of the boats which seemed to be coming in its direction. Now and then a circumstance would happen which helped to keep inquiry alive. Good horsemanship was not so common among the young men of the place and its neighborhood that Maurice's accomplishment in that way could be overlooked. If there was a wicked horse or a wild colt whose owner was afraid of him, he would be commended to Maurice's attention. Paolo would lead him to his master with all due precaution,—for he had no idea of risking his neck on the back of any ill-conditioned beast,—and Maurice would fasten on his long spurs, spring into the saddle, and very speedily teach the creature good behavior. There soon got about a story that he was what the fresh-water fisherman called "one o' them whisperers." It is a common legend enough, coming from the Old World, but known in American horse-talking circles, that some persons will whisper certain words in a horse's ear which will tame him if he is as wild and furious as ever Cruiser was. All this added to the mystery which surrounded the young man. A single improbable or absurd story amounts to very little, but when half a dozen such stories are told about the same individual or the same event, they begin to produce the effect of credible evidence. If the year had been 1692 and the place had been Salem Village, Maurice Kirkwood would have run the risk of being treated like the Reverend George Burroughs.

Miss Lurida Vincent's curiosity had been intensely excited with reference to the young man of whom so many stories were told. She had pretty nearly convinced herself that he was the author of the paper on Ocean, Lake, and River, which had been read at one of the meetings of the Pansophian Society. She was very desirous of meeting him, if it were possible. It seemed as if she might, as Secretary of the Society, request the cooperation of any of the visitors, without impropriety. So, after much deliberation, she wrote a careful note, of which the following is an exact copy. Her hand was bold, almost masculine, a curious contrast to that of Euthymia, which was delicately feminine. PANSOPHIAN SOCIETY.

ARROWHEAD VILLAGE, August 3, 18-. MAURICE KIRKWOOD, ESQ.

DEAR SIR,—You have received, I trust, a card of invitation to the meetings of our Society, but I think we have not yet had the pleasure of seeing you at any of them. We have supposed that we might be indebted to you for a paper read at the last meeting, and listened to with much interest. As it was anonymous, we do not wish to be inquisitive respecting its authorship; but we desire to say that any papers kindly sent us by the temporary residents of our village will be welcome, and if adapted to the wants of our Association will be read at one of its meetings or printed in its records, or perhaps both read and printed. May we not hope for your presence at the meeting, which is to take place next Wednesday evening? Respectfully yours,

LURIDA VINCENT, Secretary of the Pansophian Society.

To this note the Secretary received the following reply: MISS LURIDA VINCENT,

ARROWHEAD VILLAGE, August 4, 18-.

Secretary of the Pansophian Society:

DEAR MISS VINCENT,—I have received the ticket you refer to, and desire to express my acknowledgments for the polite attention. I regret that I have not been and I fear shall not be able to attend the meetings of the Society; but if any subject occurs to me on which I feel an inclination to write, it will give me pleasure to send a paper, to be disposed of as the Society may see fit.

Very respectfully yours, MAURICE KIRKWOOD.

"He says nothing about the authorship of the paper that was read the other evening," the Secretary said to herself. "No matter,—he wrote it,—there is no mistaking his handwriting. We know something about him, now, at any rate. But why doesn't he come to our meetings? What has his antipathy to do with his staying away? I must find out what his secret is, and I will. I don't believe it's harder than it was to solve that prize problem which puzzled so many teachers, or than beating Crakowitz, the great chess-player."

To this enigma, then, The Terror determined to bend all the faculties which had excited the admiration and sometimes the amazement of those who knew her in her school-days. It was a very delicate piece of business; for though Lurida was an intrepid woman's rights advocate, and believed she was entitled to do almost everything that men dared to, she knew very well there were certain limits which a young woman like herself must not pass.

In the mean time Maurice had received a visit from the young student at the University,—the same whom he had rescued from his dangerous predicament in the lake. With him had called one of the teachers,—an instructor in modern languages, a native of Italy. Maurice and the instructor exchanged a few words in Italian. The young man spoke it with the ease which implied long familiarity with its use.

After they left, the instructor asked many curious questions about him,—who he was, how long he had been in the village, whether anything was known of his history,—all these inquiries with an eagerness which implied some special and peculiar reason for the interest they evinced.

"I feel satisfied," the instructor said, "that I have met that young man in my own country. It was a number of years ago, and of course he has altered in appearance a good deal; but there is a look about him of—what shall I call it?—-apprehension,—as if he were fearing the approach of something or somebody. I think it is the way a man would look that was haunted; you know what I mean,—followed by a spirit or ghost. He does not suggest the idea of a murderer,—very far from it; but if he did, I should think he was every minute in fear of seeing the murdered man's spirit."

The student was curious, in his turn, to know all the instructor could recall. He had seen him in Rome, he thought, at the Fountain of Trevi, where so many strangers go before leaving the city. The youth was in the company of a man who looked like a priest. He could not mistake the peculiar expression of his countenance, but that was all he now remembered about his appearance. His attention had been called to this young man by seeing that some of the bystanders were pointing at him, and noticing that they were whispering with each other as if with reference to him. He should say that the youth was at that time fifteen or sixteen years old, and the time was about ten years ago.

After all, this evidence was of little or no value. Suppose the youth were Maurice; what then? We know that he had been in Italy, and had been there a good while,—or at least we infer so much from his familiarity with the language, and are confirmed in the belief by his having an Italian servant, whom he probably brought from Italy when he returned. If he wrote the paper which was read the other evening, that settles it, for the writer says he had lived by the Tiber. We must put this scrap of evidence furnished by the Professor with the other scraps; it may turn out of some consequence, sooner or later. It is like a piece of a dissected map; it means almost nothing by itself, but when we find the pieces it joins with we may discover a very important meaning in it.

In a small, concentrated community like that which centred in and immediately around Arrowhead Village, every day must have its local gossip as well as its general news. The newspaper tells the small community what is going on in the great world, and the busy tongues of male and female, especially the latter, fill in with the occurrences and comments of the ever-stirring microcosm. The fact that the Italian teacher had, or thought he had, seen Maurice ten years before was circulated and made the most of,—turned over and over like a cake, until it was thoroughly done on both sides and all through. It was a very small cake, but better than nothing. Miss Vincent heard this story, as others did, and talked about it with her friend, Miss Tower. Here was one more fact to help along.

The two young ladies who had recently graduated at the Corinna Institute remained, as they had always been, intimate friends. They were the natural complements of each other. Euthymia represented a complete, symmetrical womanhood. Her outward presence was only an index of a large, wholesome, affluent life. She could not help being courageous, with such a firm organization. She could not help being generous, cheerful, active. She had been told often enough that she was fair to look upon. She knew that she was called The Wonder by the schoolmates who were dazzled by her singular accomplishments, but she did not overvalue them. She rather tended to depreciate her own gifts, in comparison with those of her friend, Miss Lurida Vincent. The two agreed all the better for differing as they did. The octave makes a perfect chord, when shorter intervals jar more or less on the ear. Each admired the other with a heartiness which if they had been less unlike, would have been impossible.

It was a pleasant thing to observe their dependence on each other. The Terror of the schoolroom was the oracle in her relations with her friend. All the freedom of movement which The Wonder showed in her bodily exercises The Terror manifested in the world of thought. She would fling open a book, and decide in a swift glance whether it had any message for her. Her teachers had compared her way of reading to the taking of an instantaneous photograph. When she took up the first book on Physiology which Dr. Butts handed her, it seemed to him that if she only opened at any place, and gave one look, her mind drank its meaning up, as a moist sponge absorbs water. "What can I do with such a creature as this?" he said to himself. "There is only one way to deal with her, treat her as one treats a silkworm: give it its mulberry leaf, and it will spin its own cocoon. Give her the books, and she will spin her own web of knowledge."

"Do you really think of studying medicine?" said Dr. Butts to her.

"I have n't made up my mind about that," she answered, "but I want to know a little more about this terrible machinery of life and death we are all tangled in. I know something about it, but not enough. I find some very strange beliefs among the women I meet with, and I want to be able to silence them when they attempt to proselyte me to their whims and fancies. Besides, I want to know everything."

"They tell me you do, already," said Dr. Butts.

"I am the most ignorant little wretch that draws the breath of life!" exclaimed The Terror.

The doctor smiled. He knew what it meant. She had reached that stage of education in which the vast domain of the unknown opens its illimitable expanse before the eyes of the student. We never know the extent of darkness until it is partially illuminated.

"You did not leave the Institute with the reputation of being the most ignorant young lady that ever graduated there," said the doctor. "They tell me you got the highest marks of any pupil on their record since the school was founded."

"What a grand thing it was to be the biggest fish in our small aquarium, to be sure!" answered The Terror. "He was six inches long, the monster,—a little too big for bait to catch a pickerel with! What did you hand me that schoolbook for? Did you think I did n't know anything about the human body?"

"You said you were such an ignorant creature I thought I would try you with an easy book, by way of introduction."

The Terror was not confused by her apparent self-contradiction.

"I meant what I said, and I mean what I say. When I talk about my ignorance, I don't measure myself with schoolgirls, doctor. I don't measure myself with my teachers, either. You must talk to me as if I were a man, a grown man, if you mean to teach me anything. Where is your hat, doctor? Let me try it on."

The doctor handed her his wide-awake. The Terror's hair was not naturally abundant, like Euthymia's, and she kept it cut rather short. Her head used to get very hot when she studied hard. She tried to put the hat on.

"Do you see that?" she said. "I could n't wear it—it would squeeze my eyes out of my head. The books told me that women's brains were smaller than men's: perhaps they are,—most of them,—I never measured a great many. But when they try to settle what women are good for, by phrenology, I like to have them put their tape round my head. I don't believe in their nonsense, for all that. You might as well tell me that if one horse weighs more than another horse he is worth more,—a cart-horse that weighs twelve or fourteen hundred pounds better than Eclipse, that may have weighed a thousand. Give me a list of the best books you can think of, and turn me loose in your library. I can find what I want, if you have it; and what I don't find there I will get at the Public Library. I shall want to ask you a question now and then."

The doctor looked at her with a kind of admiration, but thoughtfully, as if he feared she was thinking of a task too formidable for her slight constitutional resource.

She returned, instinctively, to the apparent contradiction in her statements about herself.

"I am not a fool, if I am ignorant. Yes, doctor, I sail on a wide sea of ignorance, but I have taken soundings of some of its shallows and some of its depths. Your profession deals with the facts of life that interest me most just now, and I want to know something of it. Perhaps I may find it a calling such as would suit me."

"Do you seriously think of becoming a practitioner of medicine?" said the doctor.

"Certainly, I seriously think of it as a possibility, but I want to know something more about it first. Perhaps I sha'n't believe in medicine enough to practise it. Perhaps I sha'n't like it well enough. No matter about that. I wish to study some of your best books on some of the subjects that most interest me. I know about bones and muscles and all that, and about digestion and respiration and such things. I want to study up the nervous system, and learn all about it. I am of the nervous temperament myself, and perhaps that is the reason. I want to read about insanity and all that relates to it."

A curious expression flitted across the doctor's features as The Terror said this.

"Nervous system. Insanity. She has headaches, I know,—all those large-headed, hard-thinking girls do, as a matter of course; but what has set her off about insanity and the nervous system? I wonder if any of her more remote relatives are subject to mental disorder. Bright people very often have crazy relations. Perhaps some of her friends are in that way. I wonder whether"—the doctor did not speak any of these thoughts, and in fact hardly shaped his "whether," for The Terror interrupted his train of reflection, or rather struck into it in a way which startled him.

"Where is the first volume of this Medical Cyclopaedia?" she asked, looking at its empty place on the shelf.

"On my table," the doctor answered. "I have been consulting it."

Lurida flung it open, in her eager way, and turned the pages rapidly until she came to the one she wanted. The doctor cast his eye on the beading of the page, and saw the large letters A N T.

"I thought so," he said to himself. "We shall know everything there is in the books about antipathies now, if we never did before. She has a special object in studying the nervous system, just as I suspected. I think she does not care to mention it at this time; but if she finds out anything of interest she will tell me, if she does anybody. Perhaps she does not mean to tell anybody. It is a rather delicate business,—a young girl studying the natural history of a young man. Not quite so safe as botany or palaeontology!"

Lurida, lately The Terror, now Miss Vincent, had her own plans, and chose to keep them to herself, for the present, at least. Her hands were full enough, it might seem, without undertaking the solution of the great Arrowhead Village enigma. But she was in the most perfect training, so far as her intelligence was concerned; and the summer rest had restored her bodily vigor, so that her brain was like an overcharged battery which will find conductors somewhere to carry off its crowded energy.

At this time Arrowhead Village was enjoying the most successful season it had ever known. The Pansophian Society flourished to an extraordinary degree under the fostering care of the new Secretary. The rector was a good figure-head as President, but the Secretary was the life of the Society. Communications came in abundantly: some from the village and its neighborhood, some from the University and the Institute, some from distant and unknown sources. The new Secretary was very busy with the work of examining these papers. After a forenoon so employed, the carpet of her room looked like a barn floor after a husking-match. A glance at the manuscripts strewed about, or lying in heaps, would have frightened any young writer away from the thought of authorship as a business. If the candidate for that fearful calling had seen the process of selection and elimination, he would have felt still more desperately. A paper of twenty pages would come in, with an underscored request to please read through, carefully. That request alone is commonly sufficient to condemn any paper, and prevent its having any chance of a hearing; but the Secretary was not hardened enough yet for that kind of martial law in dealing with manuscripts. The looker-on might have seen her take up the paper, cast one flashing glance at its title, read the first sentence and the last, dip at a venture into two or three pages, and decide as swiftly as the lightning calculator would add up a column of figures what was to be its destination. If rejected, it went into the heap on the left; if approved, it was laid apart, to be submitted to the Committee for their judgment. The foolish writers who insist on one's reading through their manuscript poems and stories ought to know how fatal the request is to their prospects. It provokes the reader, to begin with. The reading of manuscript is frightful work, at the best; the reading of worthless manuscript—and most of that which one is requested to read through is worthless—would add to the terrors of Tartarus, if any infernal deity were ingenious enough to suggest it as a punishment.

If a paper was rejected by the Secretary, it did not come before the Committee, but was returned to the author, if he sent for it, which he commonly did. Its natural course was to try for admission into some one of the popular magazines: into "The Sifter," the most fastidious of them all; if that declined it, into "The Second Best;" and if that returned it, into "The Omnivorous." If it was refused admittance at the doors of all the magazines, it might at length find shelter in the corner of a newspaper, where a good deal of very readable verse is to be met with nowadays, some of which has been, no doubt, presented to the Pansophian Society, but was not considered up to its standard.



X. A NEW ARRIVAL.

There was a recent accession to the transient population of the village which gave rise to some speculation. The new-comer was a young fellow, rather careless in his exterior, but apparently as much at home as if he owned Arrowhead Village and everything in it. He commonly had a cigar in his mouth, carried a pocket pistol, of the non-explosive sort, and a stick with a bulldog's head for its knob; wore a soft hat, a coarse check suit, a little baggy, and gaiterboots which had been half-soled,—a Bohemian-looking personage, altogether.

This individual began making explorations in every direction. He was very curious about the place and all the people in it. He was especially interested in the Pansophian Society, concerning which he made all sorts of inquiries. This led him to form a summer acquaintance with the Secretary, who was pleased to give him whatever information he asked for; being proud of the Society, as she had a right to be, and knowing more about it than anybody else.

The visitor could not have been long in the village without hearing something of Maurice Kirkwood, and the stories, true and false, connected with his name. He questioned everybody who could tell him anything about Maurice, and set down the answers in a little note-book he always had with him.

All this naturally excited the curiosity of the village about this new visitor. Among the rest, Miss Vincent, not wanting in an attribute thought to belong more especially to her sex, became somewhat interested to know more exactly who this inquiring, note-taking personage, who seemed to be everywhere and to know everybody, might himself be. Meeting him at the Public Library at a fortunate moment, when there was nobody but the old Librarian, who was hard of hearing, to interfere with their conversation, the little Secretary had a chance to try to find out something about him.

"This is a very remarkable library for a small village to possess," he remarked to Miss Lurida.

"It is, indeed," she said. "Have you found it well furnished with the books you most want?"

"Oh, yes,—books enough. I don't care so much for the books as I do for the Newspapers. I like a Review well enough,—it tells you all there is in a book; but a good abstract of the Review in a Newspaper saves a fellow the trouble of reading it."

"You find the papers you want, here, I hope," said the young lady.

"Oh, I get along pretty well. It's my off-time, and I don't do much reading or writing. Who is the city correspondent of this place?"

"I don't think we have any one who writes regularly. Now and then, there is a letter, with the gossip of the place in it, or an account of some of the doings at our Society. The city papers are always glad to get the reports of our meetings, and to know what is going on in the village."

"I suppose you write about the Society to the papers, as you are the Secretary."

This was a point-blank shot. She meant to question the young man about his business, and here she was on the witness-stand. She ducked her head, and let the question go over her.

"Oh, there are plenty of members who are willing enough to write, —especially to give an account of their own papers. I think they like to have me put in the applause, when they get any. I do that sometimes." (How much more, she did not say.)

"I have seen some very well written articles, which, from what they tell me of the Secretary, I should have thought she might have written herself."

He looked her straight in the eyes.

"I have transmitted some good papers," she said, without winking, or swallowing, or changing color, precious little color she had to change; her brain wanted all the blood it could borrow or steal, and more too. "You spoke of Newspapers," she said, without any change of tone or manner: "do you not frequently write for them yourself?"

"I should think I did," answered the young man. "I am a regular correspondent of 'The People's Perennial and Household Inquisitor.'"

"The regular correspondent from where?"

"Where! Oh, anywhere,—the place does not make much difference. I have been writing chiefly from Naples and St. Petersburg, and now and then from Constantinople."

"How long since your return to this country, may I ask?"

"My return? I have never been out of this country. I travel with a gazetteer and some guide-books. It is the cheapest way, and you can get the facts much better from them than by trusting your own observation. I have made the tour of Europe by the help of them and the newspapers. But of late I have taken to interviewing. I find that a very pleasant specialty. It is about as good sport as trout-tickling, and much the same kind of business. I should like to send the Society an account of one of my interviews. Don't you think they would like to hear it?"

"I have no doubt they would. Send it to me, and I will look it over; and if the Committee approve it, we will have it at the next meeting. You know everything has to be examined and voted on by the Committee," said the cautious Secretary.

"Very well,—I will risk it. After it is read, if it is read, please send it back to me, as I want to sell it to 'The Sifter,' or 'The Second Best,' or some of the paying magazines."

This is the paper, which was read at the next meeting of the Pansophian Society.

"I was ordered by the editor of the newspaper to which I am attached, 'The People's Perennial and Household Inquisitor,' to make a visit to a certain well-known writer, and obtain all the particulars I could concerning him and all that related to him. I have interviewed a good many politicians, who I thought rather liked the process; but I had never tried any of these literary people, and I was not quite sure how this one would feel about it. I said as much to the chief, but he pooh-poohed my scruples. 'It is n't our business whether they like it or not,' said he; 'the public wants it, and what the public wants it's bound to have, and we are bound to furnish it. Don't be afraid of your man; he 's used to it,—he's been pumped often enough to take it easy, and what you've got to do is to pump him dry. You need n't be modest,—ask him what you like; he is n't bound to answer, you know.'

"As he lived in a rather nice quarter of the town, I smarted myself up a little, put on a fresh collar and cuffs, and got a five-cent shine on my best high-lows. I said to myself, as I was walking towards the house where he lived, that I would keep very shady for a while and pass for a visitor from a distance; one of those 'admiring strangers' who call in to pay their respects, to get an autograph, and go home and say that they have met the distinguished So and So, which gives them a certain distinction in the village circle to which they belong.

"My man, the celebrated writer, received me in what was evidently his reception-room. I observed that he managed to get the light full on my face, while his own was in the shade. I had meant to have his face in the light, but he knew the localities, and had arranged things so as to give him that advantage. It was like two frigates manoeuvring,—each trying to get to windward of the other. I never take out my note-book until I and my man have got engaged in artless and earnest conversation,—always about himself and his works, of course, if he is an author.

"I began by saying that he must receive a good many callers. Those who had read his books were naturally curious to see the writer of them.

"He assented, emphatically, to this statement. He had, he said, a great many callers.

"I remarked that there was a quality in his books which made his readers feel as if they knew him personally, and caused them to cherish a certain attachment to him.

"He smiled, as if pleased. He was himself disposed to think so, he said. In fact, a great many persons, strangers writing to him, had told him so.

"My dear sir," I said, "there is nothing wonderful in the fact you mention. You reach a responsive chord in many human breasts.

'One touch of Nature makes the whole world kin.'

"Everybody feels as if he, and especially she (his eyes sparkled), were your blood relation. Do they not name their children after you very frequently?

"He blushed perceptibly. 'Sometimes,' he answered. 'I hope they will all turn out well.'

"I am afraid I am taking up too much of your time, I said.

"No, not at all,' he replied. 'Come up into my library; it is warmer and pleasanter there.'

"I felt confident that I had him by the right handle then; for an author's library, which is commonly his working-room, is, like a lady's boudoir, a sacred apartment.

"So we went upstairs, and again he got me with the daylight on my face, when I wanted it on has.

"You have a fine library, I remarked. There were books all round the room, and one of those whirligig square book-cases. I saw in front a Bible and a Concordance, Shakespeare and Mrs. Cowden Clarke's book, and other classical works and books of grave aspect. I contrived to give it a turn, and on the side next the wall I got a glimpse of Barnum's Rhyming Dictionary, and several Dictionaries of Quotations and cheap compends of knowledge. Always twirl one of those revolving book-cases when you visit a scholar's library. That is the way to find out what books he does n't want you to see, which of course are the ones you particularly wish to see.

"Some may call all this impertinent and inquisitive. What do you suppose is an interviewer's business? Did you ever see an oyster opened? Yes? Well, an interviewer's business is the same thing. His man is his oyster, which he, not with sword, but with pencil and note-book, must open. Mark how the oysterman's thin blade insinuates itself,—how gently at first, how strenuously when once fairly between the shells!

"And here, I said, you write your books,—those books which have carried your name to all parts of the world, and will convey it down to posterity! Is this the desk at which you write? And is this the pen you write with?

"'It is the desk and the very pen,' he replied.

"He was pleased with my questions and my way of putting them. I took up the pen as reverentially as if it had been made of the feather which the angel I used to read about in Young's 'Night Thoughts' ought to have dropped, and did n't.

"Would you kindly write your autograph in my note-book, with that pen? I asked him. Yes, he would, with great pleasure.

"So I got out my note-book.

"It was a spick and span new one, bought on purpose for this interview. I admire your bookcases, said I. Can you tell me just how high they are?

"'They are about eight feet, with the cornice.'

"I should like to have some like those, if I ever get rich enough, said I. Eight feet,—eight feet, with the cornice. I must put that down.

"So I got out my pencil.

"I sat there with my pencil and note-book in my hand, all ready, but not using them as yet.

"I have heard it said, I observed, that you began writing poems at a very early age. Is it taking too great a liberty to ask how early you began to write in verse?

"He was getting interested, as people are apt to be when they are themselves the subjects of conversation.

"'Very early,—I hardly know how early. I can say truly, as Louise Colet said,

"'Je fis mes premiers vers sans savoir les ecrire.'"

"I am not a very good French scholar, said I; perhaps you will be kind enough to translate that line for me.

"'Certainly. With pleasure. I made my first verses without knowing how to write them.'

"How interesting! But I never heard of Louise Colet. Who was she?

"My man was pleased to gi-ve me a piece of literary information.

"'Louise the lioness! Never heard of her? You have heard of Alphonse Karr?'

"Why,—yes,—more or less. To tell the truth, I am not very well up in French literature. What had he to do with your lioness?

"'A good deal. He satirized her, and she waited at his door with a case-knife in her hand, intending to stick him with it. By and by he came down, smoking a cigarette, and was met by this woman flourishing her case-knife. He took it from her, after getting a cut in his dressing-gown, put it in his pocket, and went on with his cigarette. He keeps it with an inscription:

"Donne a Alphonse Karr Par Madame Louise Colet.... Dans le dos.

"Lively little female!'

"I could n't help thinking that I should n't have cared to interview the lively little female. He was evidently tickled with the interest I appeared to take in the story he told me. That made him feel amiably disposed toward me.

"I began with very general questions, but by degrees I got at everything about his family history and the small events of his boyhood. Some of the points touched upon were delicate, but I put a good bold face on my most audacious questions, and so I wormed out a great deal that was new concerning my subject. He had been written about considerably, and the public wouldn't have been satisfied without some new facts; and these I meant to have, and I got. No matter about many of them now, but here are some questions and answers that may be thought worth reading or listening to:

"How do you enjoy being what they call 'a celebrity,' or a celebrated man?

"'So far as one's vanity is concerned it is well enough. But self-love is a cup without any bottom, and you might pour the Great Lakes all through it, and never fill it up. It breeds an appetite for more of the same kind. It tends to make the celebrity a mere lump of egotism. It generates a craving for high-seasoned personalities which is in danger of becoming slavery, like that following the abuse of alcohol, or opium, or tobacco. Think of a man's having every day, by every post, letters that tell him he is this and that and the other, with epithets and endearments, one tenth part of which would have made him blush red hot before he began to be what you call a celebrity!'

"Are there not some special inconveniences connected with what is called celebrity?

"'I should think so! Suppose you were obliged every day of your life to stand and shake hands, as the President of the United States has to after his inauguration: how do you think your hand would feel after a few months' practice of that exercise? Suppose you had given you thirty-five millions of money a year, in hundred-dollar coupons, on condition that you cut them all off yourself in the usual manner: how do you think you should like the look of a pair of scissors at the end of a year, in which you had worked ten hours a day every day but Sunday, cutting off a hundred coupons an hour, and found you had not finished your task, after all? You have addressed me as what you are pleased to call "a literary celebrity." I won't dispute with you as to whether or not I deserve that title. I will take it for granted I am what you call me, and give you some few hints on my experience.

"'You know there was formed a while ago an Association of Authors for Self-Protection. It meant well, and it was hoped that something would come of it in the way of relieving that oppressed class, but I am sorry to say that it has not effected its purpose.'

"I suspected he had a hand in drawing up the Constitution and Laws of that Association. Yes, I said, an admirable Association it was, and as much needed as the one for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. I am sorry to hear that it has not proved effectual in putting a stop to the abuse of a deserving class of men. It ought to have done it; it was well conceived, and its public manifesto was a masterpiece. (I saw by his expression that he was its author.)

"'I see I can trust you,' he said. 'I will unbosom myself freely of some of the grievances attaching to the position of the individual to whom you have applied the term "Literary Celebrity."

"'He is supposed to be a millionaire, in virtue of the immense sales of his books, all the money from which, it is taken for granted, goes into his pocket. Consequently, all subscription papers are handed to him for his signature, and every needy stranger who has heard his name comes to him for assistance.

"'He is expected to subscribe for all periodicals, and is goaded by receiving blank formulae, which, with their promises to pay, he is expected to fill up.

"'He receives two or three books daily, with requests to read and give his opinion about each of them, which opinion, if it has a word which can be used as an advertisement, he will find quoted in all the newspapers.

"'He receives thick masses of manuscript, prose and verse, which he is called upon to examine and pronounce on their merits; these manuscripts having almost invariably been rejected by the editors to whom they have been sent, and having as a rule no literary value whatever.

"'He is expected to sign petitions, to contribute to journals, to write for fairs, to attend celebrations, to make after-dinner speeches, to send money for objects he does not believe in to places he never heard of.

"'He is called on to keep up correspondences with unknown admirers, who begin by saying they have no claim upon his time, and then appropriate it by writing page after page, if of the male sex; and sheet after sheet, if of the other.

"'If a poet, it is taken for granted that he can sit down at any moment and spin off any number of verses on any subject which may be suggested to him; such as congratulations to the writer's great-grandmother on her reaching her hundredth year, an elegy on an infant aged six weeks, an ode for the Fourth of July in a Western township not to be found in Lippincott's last edition, perhaps a valentine for some bucolic lover who believes that wooing in rhyme is the way to win the object of his affections.'

"Is n't it so? I asked the Celebrity.

"'I would bet on the prose lover. She will show the verses to him, and they will both have a good laugh over them.'

"I have only reported a small part of the conversation I had with the Literary Celebrity. He was so much taken up with his pleasing self-contemplation, while I made him air his opinions and feelings and spread his characteristics as his laundress spreads and airs his linen on the clothes-line, that I don't believe it ever occurred to him that he had been in the hands of an interviewer until he found himself exposed to the wind and sunshine in full dimensions in the columns of The People's Perennial and Household Inquisitor.'"

After the reading of this paper, much curiosity was shown as to who the person spoken of as the "Literary Celebrity" might be. Among the various suppositions the startling idea was suggested that he was neither more nor less than the unexplained personage known in the village as Maurice Kirkwood. Why should that be his real name? Why should not he be the Celebrity, who had taken this name and fled to this retreat to escape from the persecutions of kind friends, who were pricking him and stabbing him nigh to death with their daggers of sugar candy?

The Secretary of the Pansophian Society determined to question the Interviewer the next time she met him at the Library, which happened soon after the meeting when his paper was read.

"I do not know," she said, in the course of a conversation in which she had spoken warmly of his contribution to the literary entertainment of the Society, "that you mentioned the name of the Literary Celebrity whom you interviewed so successfully."

"I did not mention him, Miss Vincent," he answered, "nor do I think it worth while to name him. He might not care to have the whole story told of how he was handled so as to make him communicative. Besides, if I did, it would bring him a new batch of sympathetic letters, regretting that he was bothered by those horrid correspondents, full of indignation at the bores who presumed to intrude upon him with their pages of trash, all the writers of which would expect answers to their letters of condolence."

The Secretary asked the Interviewer if he knew the young gentleman who called himself Maurice Kirkwood.

"What," he answered, "the man that paddles a birch canoe, and rides all the wild horses of the neighborhood? No, I don't know him, but I have met him once or twice, out walking. A mighty shy fellow, they tell me. Do you know anything particular about him?"

"Not much. None of us do, but we should like to. The story is that he has a queer antipathy to something or to somebody, nobody knows what or whom."

"To newspaper correspondents, perhaps," said the interviewer. "What made you ask me about him? You did n't think he was my 'Literary Celebrity,' did you?"

"I did not know. I thought he might be. Why don't you interview this mysterious personage? He would make a good sensation for your paper, I should think."

"Why, what is there to be interviewed in him? Is there any story of crime, or anything else to spice a column or so, or even a few paragraphs, with? If there is, I am willing to handle him professionally."

"I told you he has what they call an antipathy. I don't know how much wiser you are for that piece of information."

"An antipathy! Why, so have I an antipathy. I hate a spider, and as for a naked caterpillar,—I believe I should go into a fit if I had to touch one. I know I turn pale at the sight of some of those great green caterpillars that come down from the elm-trees in August and early autumn."

"Afraid of them?" asked the young lady.

"Afraid? What should I be afraid of? They can't bite or sting. I can't give any reason. All I know is that when I come across one of these creatures in my path I jump to one side, and cry out,—sometimes using very improper words. The fact is, they make me crazy for the moment."

"I understand what you mean," said Miss Vincent. "I used to have the same feeling about spiders, but I was ashamed of it, and kept a little menagerie of spiders until I had got over the feeling; that is, pretty much got over it, for I don't love the creatures very dearly, though I don't scream when I see one."

"What did you tell me, Miss Vincent, was this fellow's particular antipathy?"

"That is just the question. I told you that we don't know and we can't guess what it is. The people here are tired out with trying to discover some good reason for the young man's keeping out of the way of everybody, as he does. They say he is odd or crazy, and they don't seem to be able to tell which. It would make the old ladies of the village sleep a great deal sounder,—yes, and some of the young ladies, too,—if they could find out what this Mr. Kirkwood has got into his head, that he never comes near any of the people here."

"I think I can find out," said the Interviewer, whose professional ambition was beginning to be excited. "I never came across anybody yet that I could n't get something out of. I am going to stay here a week or two, and before I go I will find out the secret, if there is any, of this Mr. Maurice Kirkwood."

We must leave the Interviewer to his contrivances until they present us with some kind of result, either in the shape of success or failure.



XI. THE INTERVIEWER ATTACKS THE SPHINX.

When Miss Euthymia Tower sent her oar off in flashing splinters, as she pulled her last stroke in the boat-race, she did not know what a strain she was putting upon it. She did know that she was doing her best, but how great the force of her best was she was not aware until she saw its effects. Unconsciousness belonged to her robust nature, in all its manifestations. She did not pride herself on her knowledge, nor reproach herself for her ignorance. In every way she formed a striking contrast to her friend, Miss Vincent. Every word they spoke betrayed the difference between them: the sharp tones of Lurida's head-voice, penetrative, aggressive, sometimes irritating, revealed the corresponding traits of mental and moral character; the quiet, conversational contralto of Euthymia was the index of a nature restful and sympathetic.

The friendships of young girls prefigure the closer relations which will one day come in and dissolve their earlier intimacies. The dependence of two young friends may be mutual, but one will always lean more heavily than the other; the masculine and feminine elements will be as sure to assert themselves as if the friends were of different sexes.

On all common occasions Euthymia looked up to her friend as her superior. She fully appreciated all her varied gifts and knowledge, and deferred to her opinion in every-day matters, not exactly as an oracle, but as wiser than herself or any of her other companions. It was a different thing, however, when the graver questions of life came up. Lurida was full of suggestions, plans, projects, which were too liable to run into whims before she knew where they were tending. She would lay out her ideas before Euthymia so fluently and eloquently that she could not help believing them herself, and feeling as if her friend must accept them with an enthusiasm like her own. Then Euthymia would take them up with her sweet, deliberate accents, and bring her calmer judgment to bear on them.

Lurida was in an excited condition, in the midst of all her new interests and occupations. She was constantly on the lookout for papers to be read at the meetings of her Society,—for she made it her own in great measure, by her zeal and enthusiasm,—and in the mean time she was reading in various books which Dr. Butts selected for her, all bearing on the profession to which, at least as a possibility, she was looking forward. Privately and in a very still way, she was occupying herself with the problem of the young stranger, the subject of some delusion, or disease, or obliquity of unknown nature, to which the vague name of antipathy had been attached. Euthymia kept an eye upon her, partly in the fear that over-excitement would produce some mental injury, and partly from anxiety lest she should compromise her womanly dignity in her desire to get at the truth of a very puzzling question.

"How do you like the books I see you reading?" said Euthymia to Lurida, one day, as they met at the Library.

"Better than all the novels I ever read," she answered. "I have been reading about the nervous system, and it seems to me I have come nearer the springs of life than ever before in all my studies. I feel just as if I were a telegraph operator. I was sure that I had a battery in my head, for I know my brain works like one; but I did not know how many centres of energy there are, and how they are played upon by all sorts of influences, external and internal. Do you know, I believe I could solve the riddle of the 'Arrowhead Village Sphinx,' as the paper called him, if he would only stay here long enough?"

"What paper has had anything about it, Lurida? I have not seen or heard of its being mentioned in any of the papers."

"You know that rather queer-looking young man who has been about here for some time,—the same one who gave the account of his interview with a celebrated author? Well, he has handed me a copy of a paper in which he writes, 'The People's Perennial and Household Inquisitor.' He talks about this village in a very free and easy way. He says there is a Sphinx here, who has mystified us all."

"And you have been chatting with that fellow! Don't you know that he'll have you and all of us in his paper? Don't you know that nothing is safe where one of those fellows gets in with his note-book and pencil? Oh, Lurida, Lurida, do be careful! What with this mysterious young man and this very questionable newspaper-paragraph writer, you will be talked about, if you don't mind, before you know it. You had better let the riddle of the Sphinx alone. If you must deal with such dangerous people, the safest way is to set one of them to find out the other.—I wonder if we can't get this new man to interview the visitor you have so much curiosity about. That might be managed easily enough without your having anything to do with it. Let me alone, and I will arrange it. But mind, now, you must not meddle; if you do, you will spoil everything, and get your name in the 'Household Inquisitor' in a way you won't like."

"Don't be frightened about me, Euthymia. I don't mean to give him a chance to work me into his paper, if I can help it. But if you can get him to try his skill upon this interesting personage and his antipathy, so much the better. I am very curious about it, and therefore about him. I want to know what has produced this strange state of feeling in a young man who ought to have all the common instincts of a social being. I believe there are unexplained facts in the region of sympathies and antipathies which will repay study with a deeper insight into the mysteries of life than we have dreamed of hitherto. I often wonder whether there are not heart-waves and soul-waves as well as 'brain-waves,' which some have already recognized."

Euthymia wondered, as well she might, to hear this young woman talking the language of science like an adept. The truth is, Lurida was one of those persons who never are young, and who, by way of compensation, will never be old. They are found in both sexes. Two well-known graduates of one of our great universities are living examples of this precocious but enduring intellectual development. If the readers of this narrative cannot pick them out, they need not expect the writer of it to help them. If they guess rightly who they are, they will recognize the fact that just such exceptional individuals as the young woman we are dealing with are met with from time to time in families where intelligence has been cumulative for two or three generations.

Euthymia was very willing that the questioning and questionable visitor should learn all that was known in the village about the nebulous individual whose misty environment all the eyes in the village were trying to penetrate, but that he should learn it from some other informant than Lurida.

The next morning, as the Interviewer took his seat on a bench outside his door, to smoke his after-breakfast cigar, a bright-looking and handsome youth, whose features recalled those of Euthymia so strikingly that one might feel pretty sure he was her brother, took a seat by his side. Presently the two were engaged in conversation. The Interviewer asked all sorts of questions about everybody in the village. When he came to inquire about Maurice, the youth showed a remarkable interest regarding him. The greatest curiosity, he said, existed with reference to this personage. Everybody was trying to find out what his story was,—for a story, and a strange one, he must surely have,—and nobody had succeeded.

The Interviewer began to be unusually attentive. The young man told him the various antipathy stories, about the evil-eye hypothesis, about his horse-taming exploits, his rescuing the student whose boat was overturned, and every occurrence he could recall which would help out the effect of his narrative.

The Interviewer was becoming excited. "Can't find out anything about him, you said, did n-'t you? How do you know there's anything to find? Do you want to know what I think he is? I'll tell you. I think he is an actor,—a fellow from one of the city theatres. Those fellows go off in their summer vacation, and like to puzzle the country folks. They are the very same chaps, like as not, the visitors have seen in plays at the city theatres; but of course they don't know 'em in plain clothes. Kings and Emperors look pretty shabby off the stage sometimes, I can tell you."

The young man followed the Interviewer's lead. "I shouldn't wonder if you were right," he said. "I remember seeing a young fellow in Romeo that looked a good deal like this one. But I never met the Sphinx, as they call him, face to face. He is as shy as a woodchuck. I believe there are people here that would give a hundred dollars to find out who he is, and where he came from, and what he is here for, and why he does n't act like other folks. I wonder why some of those newspaper men don't come up here and get hold of this story. It would be just the thing for a sensational writer."

To all this the Interviewer listened with true professional interest. Always on the lookout for something to make up a paragraph or a column about; driven oftentimes to the stalest of repetitions,—to the biggest pumpkin story, the tall cornstalk, the fat ox, the live frog from the human stomach story, the third set of teeth and reading without spectacles at ninety story, and the rest of the marvellous commonplaces which are kept in type with e o y or e 6 m (every other year or every six months) at the foot; always in want of a fresh incident, a new story, an undescribed character, an unexplained mystery, it is no wonder that the Interviewer fastened eagerly upon this most tempting subject for an inventive and emotional correspondent.

He had seen Paolo several times, and knew that he was Maurice's confidential servant, but had never spoken to him. So he said to himself that he must make Paolo's acquaintance, to begin with. In the summer season many kinds of small traffic were always carried on in Arrowhead Village. Among the rest, the sellers of fruits—oranges, bananas, and others, according to the seasons—did an active business. The Interviewer watched one of these fruit-sellers, and saw that his hand-cart stopped opposite the house where, as he knew, Maurice Kirkwood was living. Presently Paolo came out of the door, and began examining the contents of the hand-cart. The Interviewer saw his opportunity. Here was an introduction to the man, and the man must introduce him to the master.

He knew very well how to ingratiate himself with the man,—there was no difficulty about that. He had learned his name, and that he was an Italian whom Maurice had brought to this country with him.

"Good morning, Mr. Paul," he said. "How do you like the look of these oranges?"

"They pretty fair," said Paolo: "no so good as them las' week; no sweet as them was."

"Why, how do you know without tasting them?" said the Interviewer.

"I know by his look,—I know by his smell,—he no good yaller,—he no smell ripe,—I know orange ever since my head no bigger than he is," and Paolo laughed at his own comparison.

The Interviewer laughed louder than Paolo.

"Good!" said he,—"first-rate! Of course you know all about 'em. Why can't you pick me out a couple of what you think are the best of 'em? I shall be greatly obliged to you. I have a sick friend, and I want to get two nice sweet ones for him."

Paolo was pleased. His skill and judgment were recognized. He felt grateful to the stranger, who had given him, an opportunity of conferring a favor. He selected two, after careful examination and grave deliberation. The Interviewer had sense and tact enough not to offer him an orange, and so shift the balance of obligation.

"How is Mr. Kirkwood, to-day?" he asked.

"Signor? He very well. He always well. Why you ask? Anybody tell you he sick?"

"No, nobody said he was sick. I have n't seen him going about for a day or two, and I thought he might have something the matter with him. Is he in the house now?"

"No: he off riding. He take long, long rides, sometime gone all day. Sometime he go on lake, paddle, paddle in the morning, very, very early,—in night when the moon shine; sometime stay in house, and read, and study, and write,—he great scholar, Misser Kirkwood."

"A good many books, has n't he?"

"He got whole shelfs full of books. Great books, little books, old books, new books, all sorts of books. He great scholar, I tell you."

"Has n't he some curiosities,—old figures, old jewelry, old coins, or things of that sort?"

Paolo looked at the young man cautiously, almost suspiciously. "He don't keep no jewels nor no money in his chamber. He got some old things,—old jugs, old brass figgers, old money, such as they used to have in old times: she don't pass now." Paolo's genders were apt to be somewhat indiscriminately distributed.

A lucky thought struck the Interviewer. "I wonder if he would examine some old coins of mine?" said he, in a modestly tentative manner.

"I think he like to see anything curious. When he come home I ask him. Who will I tell him wants to ask him about old coin?"

"Tell him a gentleman visiting Arrowhead Village would like to call and show him some old pieces of money, said to be Roman ones."

The Interviewer had just remembered that he had two or three old battered bits of copper which he had picked up at a tollman's, where they had been passed off for cents. He had bought them as curiosities. One had the name of Gallienus upon it, tolerably distinct,—a common little Roman penny; but it would serve his purpose of asking a question, as would two or three others with less legible legends. Paolo told him that if he came the next morning he would stand a fair chance of seeing Mr. Kirkwood. At any rate, he would speak to his master.

The Interviewer presented himself the next morning, after finishing his breakfast and his cigar, feeling reasonably sure of finding Mr. Kirkwood at home, as he proved to be. He had told Paolo to show the stranger up to his library,—or study, as he modestly called it.

It was a pleasant room enough, with a lookout on the lake in one direction, and the wooded hill in another. The tenant had fitted it up in scholarly fashion. The books Paolo spoke of were conspicuous, many of them, by their white vellum binding and tasteful gilding, showing that probably they had been bound in Rome, or some other Italian city. With these were older volumes in their dark original leather, and recent ones in cloth or paper. As the Interviewer ran his eye over them, he found that he could make very little out of what their backs taught him. Some of the paper-covered books, some of the cloth-covered ones, had names which he knew; but those on the backs of many of the others were strange to his eyes. The classics of Greek and Latin and Italian literature were there; and he saw enough to feel convinced that he had better not attempt to display his erudition in the company of this young scholar.

The first thing the Interviewer had to do was to account for his visiting a person who had not asked to make his acquaintance, and who was living as a recluse. He took out his battered coppers, and showed them to Maurice.

"I understood that you were very skilful in antiquities, and had a good many yourself. So I took the liberty of calling upon you, hoping that you could tell me something about some ancient coins I have had for a good while." So saying, he pointed to the copper with the name of Gallienus.

"Is this very rare and valuable? I have heard that great prices have been paid for some of these ancient coins,—ever so many guineas, sometimes. I suppose this is as much as a thousand years old."

"More than a thousand years old," said Maurice.

"And worth a great deal of money?" asked the Interviewer.

"No, not a great deal of money," answered Maurice.

"How much, should you say?" said the Interviewer.

Maurice smiled. "A little more than the value of its weight in copper,—I am afraid not much more. There are a good many of these coins of Gallienus knocking about. The peddlers and the shopkeepers take such pieces occasionally, and sell them, sometimes for five or ten cents, to young collectors. No, it is not very precious in money value, but as a relic any piece of money that was passed from hand to hand a thousand or fifteen hundred years ago is interesting. The value of such relics is a good deal a matter of imagination."

"And what do you say to these others?" asked the Interviewer. Poor old worn-out things they were, with a letter or two only, and some faint trace of a figure on one or two of them.

"Very interesting, always, if they carry your imagination back to the times when you may suppose they were current. Perhaps Horace tossed one of them to a beggar. Perhaps one of these was the coin that was brought when One said to those about Him, 'Bring me a penny, that I may see it.' But the market price is a different matter. That depends on the beauty and preservation, and above all the rarity, of the specimen. Here is a coin, now,"—he opened a small cabinet, and took one from it. "Here is a Syracusan decadrachm with the head of Persephone, which is at once rare, well preserved, and beautiful. I am afraid to tell what I paid for it."

The Interviewer was not an expert in numismatics. He cared very little more for an old coin than he did for an old button, but he had thought his purchase at the tollman's might prove a good speculation. No matter about the battered old pieces: he had found out, at any rate, that Maurice must have money and could be extravagant, or what he himself considered so; also that he was familiar with ancient coins. That would do for a beginning.

"May I ask where you picked up the coin you are showing me?" he said

"That is a question which provokes a negative answer. One does not 'pick up' first-class coins or paintings, very often, in these times. I bought this of a great dealer in Rome."

"Lived in Rome once?" said the Interviewer.

"For some years. Perhaps you have been there yourself?"

The Interviewer said he had never been there yet, but he hoped he should go there, one of these years, "suppose you studied art and antiquities while you were there?" he continued.

"Everybody who goes to Rome must learn something of art and antiquities. Before you go there I advise you to review Roman history and the classic authors. You had better make a study of ancient and modern art, and not have everything to learn while you are going about among ruins, and churches, and galleries. You know your Horace and Virgil well, I take it for granted?"

The Interviewer hesitated. The names sounded as if he had heard them. "Not so well as I mean to before going to Rome," he answered. "May I ask how long you lived in Rome?"

"Long enough to know something of what is to be seen in it. No one should go there without careful preparation beforehand. You are familiar with Vasari, of course?"

The Interviewer felt a slight moisture on his forehead. He took out his handkerchief. "It is a warm day," he said. "I have not had time to read all—the works I mean to. I have had too much writing to do, myself, to find all the time for reading and study I could have wished."

"In what literary occupation have you been engaged, if you will pardon my inquiry? said Maurice.

"I am connected with the press. I understood that you were a man of letters, and I hoped I might have the privilege of hearing from your own lips some account of your literary experiences."

"Perhaps that might be interesting, but I think I shall reserve it for my autobiography. You said you were connected with the press. Do I understand that you are an author?"

By this time the Interviewer had come to the conclusion that it was a very warm day. He did not seem to be getting hold of his pitcher by the right handle, somehow. But he could not help answering Maurice's very simple question.

"If writing for a newspaper gives one a right to be called an author, I may call myself one. I write for the 'People's Perennial and Household Inquisitor'."

"Are you the literary critic of that well-known journal, or do you manage the political column?"

"I am a correspondent from different places and on various matters of interest."

"Places you have been to, and people you have known?"

"Well, yes,-generally, that is. Sometimes I have to compile my articles."

"Did you write the letter from Rome, published a few weeks ago?"

The Interviewer was in what he would call a tight place. However, he had found that his man was too much for him, and saw that the best thing he could do was to submit to be interviewed himself. He thought that he should be able to pick up something or other which he could work into his report of his visit.

"Well, I—prepared that article for our columns. You know one does not have to see everything he describes. You found it accurate, I hope, in its descriptions?"

"Yes, Murray is generally accurate. Sometimes he makes mistakes, but I can't say how far you have copied them. You got the Ponte Molle—the old Milvian bridge—a good deal too far down the stream, if I remember. I happened to notice that, but I did not read the article carefully. May I ask whether you propose to do me the honor of reporting this visit and the conversation we have had, for the columns of the newspaper with which you are connected?"

The Interviewer thought he saw an opening. "If you have no objections," he said, "I should like very much to ask a few questions." He was recovering his professional audacity.

"You can ask as many questions as you consider proper and discreet, —after you have answered one or two of mine: Who commissioned you to submit me to examination?"

"The curiosity of the public wishes to be gratified, and I am the humble agent of its investigations."

"What has the public to do with my private affairs?"

"I suppose it is a question of majority and minority. That settles everything in this country. You are a minority of one opposed to a large number of curious people that form a majority against you. That is the way I've heard the chief put it."

Maurice could not help smiling at the quiet assumption of the American citizen. The Interviewer smiled, too, and thought he had his man, sure, at last. Maurice calmly answered, "There is nothing left for minorities, then, but the right of rebellion. I don't care about being made the subject of an article for your paper. I am here for my pleasure, minding my own business, and content with that occupation. I rebel against your system of forced publicity. Whenever I am ready I shall tell the public all it has any right to know about me. In the mean time I shall request to be spared reading my biography while I am living. I wish you a good-morning."

The Interviewer had not taken out his note-book and pencil. In his next communication from Arrowhead Village he contented himself with a brief mention of the distinguished and accomplished gentleman now visiting the place, whose library and cabinet of coins he had had the privilege of examining, and whose courtesy was equalled only by the modesty that shunned the public notoriety which the organs of popular intelligence would otherwise confer upon him.

The Interviewer had attempted the riddle of the Sphinx, and had failed to get the first hint of its solution.

The many tongues of the village and its visitors could not remain idle. The whole subject of antipathies had been talked over, and the various cases recorded had become more or less familiar to the conversational circles which met every evening in the different centres of social life. The prevalent hypothesis for the moment was that Maurice had a congenital aversion to some color, the effects of which upon him were so painful or disagreeable that he habitually avoided exposure to it. It was known, and it has already been mentioned, that such cases were on record. There had been a great deal of discussion, of late, with reference to a fact long known to a few individuals, but only recently made a matter of careful scientific observation and brought to the notice of the public. This was the now well-known phenomenon of color-blindness. It did not seem very strange that if one person in every score or two could not tell red from green there might be other curious individual peculiarities relating to color. A case has already been referred to where the subject of observation fainted at the sight of any red object. What if this were the trouble with Maurice Kirkwood? It will be seen at once how such a congenital antipathy would tend to isolate the person who was its unfortunate victim. It was an hypothesis not difficult to test, but it was a rather delicate business to be experimenting on an inoffensive stranger. Miss Vincent was thinking it over, but said nothing, even to Euthymia, of any projects she might entertain.



XII. MISS VINCENT AS A MEDICAL STUDENT.

The young lady whom we have known as The Terror, as Lurida, as Miss Vincent, Secretary of the Pansophian Society, had been reading various works selected for her by Dr. Butts,—works chiefly relating to the nervous system and its different affections. She thought it was about time to talk over the general subject of the medical profession with her new teacher,—if such a self-directing person as Lurida could be said to recognize anybody as teacher.

She began at the beginning. "What is the first book you would put in a student's hands, doctor?" she said to him one day. They were in his study, and Lurida had just brought back a thick volume on Insanity, one of Bucknill and Puke's, which she had devoured as if it had been a pamphlet.

"Not that book, certainly," he said. "I am afraid it will put all sorts of notions into your head. Who or what set you to reading that, I should like to know?"

"I found it on one of your shelves, and as I thought I might perhaps be crazy some time or other, I felt as if I should like to know what kind of a condition insanity is. I don't believe they were ever very bright, those insane people, most of them. I hope I am not stupid enough ever to lose my wits."

"There is no telling, my dear, what may happen if you overwork that busy brain of yours. But did n't it make you nervous, reading about so many people possessed with such strange notions?"

"Nervous? Not a bit. I could n't help thinking, though, how many people I had known that had a little touch of craziness about them. Take that poor woman that says she is Her Majesty's Person,—not Her Majesty, but Her Majesty's Person,—a very important distinction, according to her: how she does remind me of more than one girl I have known! She would let her skirts down so as to make a kind of train, and pile things on her head like a sort of crown, fold her arms and throw her head back, and feel as grand as a queen. I have seen more than one girl act very much in that way. Are not most of us a little crazy, doctor,—just a little? I think so. It seems to me I never saw but one girl who was free from every hint of craziness."

"And who was that, pray?"

"Why, Euthymia,—nobody else, of course. She never loses her head,—I don't believe she would in an earthquake. Whenever we were at work with our microscopes at the Institute I always told her that her mind was the only achromatic one I ever looked into,—I did n't say looked through.—-But I did n't come to talk about that. I read in one of your books that when Sydenham was asked by a student what books he should read, the great physician said, 'Read "Don Quixote."' I want you to explain that to me; and then I want you to tell me what is the first book, according to your idea, that a student ought to read."

"What do you say to my taking your question as the subject of a paper to be read before the Society? I think there may be other young ladies at the meeting, besides yourself, who are thinking of pursuing the study of medicine. At any rate, there are a good many who are interested in the subject; in fact, most people listen readily to anything doctors tell them about their calling."

"I wish you would, doctor. I want Euthymia to hear it, and I don't doubt there will be others who will be glad to hear everything you have to say about it. But oh, doctor, if you could only persuade Eutbymia to become a physician! What a doctor she would make! So strong, so calm, so full of wisdom! I believe she could take the wheel of a steamboat in a storm, or the hose of a fire-engine in a conflagration, and handle it as well as the captain of the boat or of the fire-company."

"Have you ever talked with her about studying medicine?"

"Indeed I have. Oh, if she would only begin with me! What good times we would have studying together!"

"I don't doubt it. Medicine is a very pleasant study. But how do you think practice would be? How would you like being called up to ride ten miles in a midnight snow-storm, just when one of your raging headaches was racking you?"

"Oh, but we could go into partnership, and Euthymia is n't afraid of storms or anything else. If she would only study medicine with me!"

"Well, what does she say to it?"

"She does n't like the thought of it. She does n't believe in women doctors. She thinks that now and then a woman may be fitted for it by nature, but she does n't think there are many who are. She gives me a good many reasons against their practising medicine, you know what most of them are, doctor,—and ends by saying that the same woman who would be a poor sort of doctor would make a first-rate nurse; and that, she thinks, is a woman's business, if her instinct carries her to the hospital or sick-chamber. I can't argue her ideas out of her."

"Neither can I argue you out of your feeling about the matter; but I am disposed to agree with your friend, that you will often spoil a good nurse to make a poor doctor. Doctors and side-saddles don't seem to me to go together. Riding habits would be awkward things for practitioners. But come, we won't have a controversy just now. I am for giving women every chance for a good education, and if they think medicine is one of their proper callings let them try it. I think they will find that they had better at least limit themselves to certain specialties, and always have an expert of the other sex to fall back upon. The trouble is that they are so impressible and imaginative that they are at the mercy of all sorts of fancy systems. You have only to see what kinds of instruction they very commonly flock to in order to guess whether they would be likely to prove sensible practitioners. Charlatanism always hobbles on two crutches, the tattle of women, and the certificates of clergymen, and I am afraid that half the women doctors will be too much under both those influences."

Lurida believed in Dr. Butts, who, to use the common language of the village, had "carried her through" a fever, brought on by over-excitement and exhausting study. She took no offence at his reference to nursery gossip, which she had learned to hold cheap. Nobody so despises the weaknesses of women as the champion of woman's rights. She accepted the doctor's concession of a fair field and open trial of the fitness of her sex for medical practice, and did not trouble herself about his suggested limitations. As to the imaginative tendencies of women, she knew too well the truth of the doctor's remark relating to them to wish to contradict it.

"Be sure you let me have your paper in season for the next meeting, doctor," she said; and in due season it came, and was of course approved for reading.



XIII. DR. BUTTS READS A PAPER.

"Next to the interest we take in all that relates to our immortal souls is that which we feel for our mortal bodies. I am afraid my very first statement may be open to criticism. The care of the body is the first thought with a great many,—in fact, with the larger part of the world. They send for the physician first, and not until he gives them up do they commonly call in the clergyman. Even the minister himself is not so very different from other people. We must not blame him if he is not always impatient to exchange a world of multiplied interests and ever-changing sources of excitement for that which tradition has delivered to us as one eminently deficient in the stimulus of variety. Besides, these bodily frames, even when worn and disfigured by long years of service, hang about our consciousness like old garments. They are used to us, and we are used to them. And all the accidents of our lives,—the house we dwell in, the living people round us, the landscape we look over, all, up to the sky that covers us like a bell glass,—all these are but looser outside garments which we have worn until they seem a part of us, and we do not like the thought of changing them for a new suit which we have never yet tried on. How well I remember that dear ancient lady, who lived well into the last decade of her century, as she repeated the verse which, if I had but one to choose, I would select from that string of pearls, Gray's 'Elegy'!

"'For who to dumb forgetfulness a prey This pleasing, anxious being e'er resigned, Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day, Nor cast one longing, lingering look behind?'

"Plotinus was ashamed of his body, we are told. Better so, it may be, than to live solely for it, as so many do. But it may be well doubted if there is any disciple of Plotinus in this Society. On the contrary, there are many who think a great deal of their bodies, many who have come here to regain the health they have lost in the wear and tear of city life, and very few who have not at some time or other of their lives had occasion to call in the services of a physician.