se that isn't happier when you sit in it. What have you
discovered?--some new whirligig?"

"No, a poem. Eighteen to twenty stanzas of glorious melody imprisoned in
type."

"One of your own?" laughed St. George--one of his merry vibrating laughs
that made everybody happier about him. The sight of Richard had swept
all the cobwebs out of his brain.

"No, you trifler!--one of Edgar Allan Poe's. None of your scoffing, sir!
You may go home in tears before I am through with you. This way, both of
you."

The three had entered the coffee-room now, Richard's arm through St.
George's, Harry following close. The inventor drew out the chairs one
after another, and when they were all three seated took a missive from
his pocket and spread it out on his knee, St. George and Harry keeping
their eyes on his every movement.

"Here's a letter, St. George"--Richard's voice now fell to a serious
key--"which I have just received from your friend and mine, Mr. N.
P. Willis. In it he sends me this most wonderful poem cut from his
paper--the Mirror--and published, I discover to my astonishment, some
months back. I am going to read it to you if you will permit me. It
certainly is a most remarkable production. The wonder to me is that I
haven't seen it before. It is by that Mr. Poe you met at my house some
years ago--you remember him?--a rather sad-looking man with big head and
deep eyes?" Temple nodded in answer, and Harry's eyes glistened: Poe
was one of his university's gods. "Just let me read to you what Willis
says"--here he glanced down the letter sheet: "'Nothing, I assure you,
my dear Horn, has made so great a stir in literary circles as this
"Raven" of Poe's. I am sending it to you knowing that you are interested
in the man. If I do not mistake I first met Poe one night at your
house.' And a very extraordinary night it was, St. George," said
Richard, lifting his eyes from the sheet. "Poe, if you remember, read
one of his stories for us, and both Latrobe and Kennedy were so charmed
that they talked of nothing else for days."

St. George remembered so clearly that he could still recall the tones
of Poe's voice, and the peculiar lambent light that flashed from out the
poet's dark eyes--the light of a black opal. He settled himself back in
his chair to enjoy the treat the better. This was the kind of talk he
wanted to-day, and Richard Horn, of all others, was the man to conduct
it.

The inventor's earnestness and the absorbed look o