his summons, the gate very strangely of itself
swung open, and much astonished at this unlooked-for sort of
enchantment, Israel entered a wide vaulted passage leading to an open
court within. While he was wondering that no soul appeared, suddenly he
was hailed from a dark little window, where sat an old man cobbling
shoes, while an old woman standing by his side was thrusting her head
into the passage, intently eyeing the stranger. They proved to be the
porter and portress, the latter of whom, upon hearing his summons, had
invisibly thrust open the gate to Israel, by means of a spring
communicating with the little apartment.

Upon hearing the name of Doctor Franklin mentioned, the old woman, all
alacrity, hurried out of her den, and with much courtesy showed Israel
across the court, up three flights of stairs to a door in the rear of
the spacious building. There she left him while Israel knocked.

"Come in," said a voice.

And immediately Israel stood in the presence of the venerable Doctor
Franklin.

Wrapped in a rich dressing-gown, a fanciful present from an admiring
Marchesa, curiously embroidered with algebraic figures like a conjuror's
robe, and with a skull-cap of black satin on his hive of a head, the man
of gravity was seated at a huge claw-footed old table, round as the
zodiac. It was covered with printer papers, files of documents, rolls of
manuscript, stray bits of strange models in wood and metal, odd-looking
pamphlets in various languages, and all sorts of books, including many
presentation-copies, embracing history, mechanics, diplomacy,
agriculture, political economy, metaphysics, meteorology, and geometry.
The walls had a necromantic look, hung round with barometers of
different kinds, drawings of surprising inventions, wide maps of far
countries in the New World, containing vast empty spaces in the middle,
with the word DESERT diffusely printed there, so as to span
five-and-twenty degrees of longitude with only two syllables,--which
printed word, however, bore a vigorous pen-mark, in the Doctor's hand,
drawn straight through it, as if in summary repeal of it; crowded
topographical and trigonometrical charts of various parts of Europe;
with geometrical diagrams, and endless other surprising hangings and
upholstery of science.

The chamber itself bore evident marks of antiquity. One part of the
rough-finished wall was sadly cracked, and covered with dust, looked dim
and dark. But the aged inmate, t