subject.
He, however, would not drop it, but took both my principles and me
fearfully to task, for Blanchard was an eloquent and powerful-minded
old man; and, before we parted, I believe I promised to drop my new
acquaintance, and was all but resolved to do it.

As well might I have laid my account with shunning the light of day. He
was constant to me as my shadow, and by degrees he acquired such an
ascendency over me that I never was happy out of his company, nor
greatly so in it. When I repeated to him all that Mr. Blanchard had
said, his countenance kindled with indignation and rage; and then by
degrees his eyes sunk inward, his brow lowered, so that I was awed, and
withdrew my eyes from looking at him. A while afterwards as I was
addressing him, I chanced to look him again in the face, and the sight
of him made me start violently. He had made himself so like Mr.
Blanchard that I actually believed I had been addressing that
gentleman, and that I had done so in some absence of mind that I could
not account for. Instead of being amused at the quandary I was in, he
seemed offended: indeed, he never was truly amused with anything. And
he then asked me sullenly, if I conceived such personages as he to have
no other endowments than common mortals?

I said I never conceived that princes or potentates had any greater
share of endowments than other men, and frequently not so much. He
shook his head, and bade me think over the subject again; and there was
an end of it. I certainly felt every day the more disposed to
acknowledge such a superiority in him; and, from all that I could
gather, I had now no doubt that he was Peter of Russia. Everything
combined to warrant the supposition, and, of course, I resolved to act
in conformity with the discovery I had made.

For several days the subject of Mr. Blanchard's doubts and doctrines
formed the theme of our discourse. My friend deprecated them most
devoutly; and then again he would deplore them, and lament the great
evil that such a man might do among the human race. I joined with him
in allowing the evil in its fullest latitude; and, at length, after he
thought he had fully prepared my nature for such a trial of its powers
and abilities, he proposed calmly that we two should make away with Mr.
Blanchard. I was so shocked that my bosom became as it were a void, and
the beatings of my heart sounded loud and hollow in it; my breath cut,
and my tongue and palate became dry and spee