ared, upon me, and said, '_You_ were
never there? I did not see you. Who brought you?' And then in a more
collected tone, 'What was this about a meeting? I believe I must have
been in a doze.' To which I answered that I was thinking of fauns and
centaurs in the dark lane, and not of a witches' Sabbath; but it
seemed he took it differently.

"'Well,' said he, 'I can plead guilty to neither; but I find you very
much more of a sceptic than becomes your cloth. If you care to know
about the dark lane you might do worse than ask my housekeeper that
lived at the other end of it when she was a child.' 'Yes,' said I,
'and the old women in the almshouse and the children in the kennel. If
I were you, I would send to your brother Quinn for a bolus to clear
your brain.' 'Damn Quinn,' says he; 'talk no more of him: he has
embezzled four of my best patients this month; I believe it is that
cursed man of his, Jennett, that used to be with me, his tongue is
never still; it should be nailed to the pillory if he had his
deserts.' This, I may say, was the only time of his showing me that he
had any grudge against either Dr. Quinn or Jennett, and as was my
business, I did my best to persuade him he was mistaken in them. Yet
it could not be denied that some respectable families in the parish
had given him the cold shoulder, and for no reason that they were
willing to allege. The end was that he said he had not done so ill at
Islington but that he could afford to live at ease elsewhere when he
chose, and anyhow he bore Dr. Quinn no malice. I think I now remember
what observation of mine drew him into the train of thought which he
next pursued. It was, I believe, my mentioning some juggling tricks
which my brother in the East Indies had seen at the court of the Rajah
of Mysore. 'A convenient thing enough,' said Dr. Abell to me, 'if by
some arrangement a man could get the power of communicating motion and
energy to inanimate objects.' 'As if the axe should move itself
against him that lifts it; something of that kind?' 'Well, I don't
know that that was in my mind so much; but if you could summon such a
volume from your shelf or even order it to open at the right page.'

"He was sitting by the fire--it was a cold evening--and stretched out
his hand that way, and just then the fire-irons, or at least the
poker, fell over towards him with a great clatter, and I did not hear
what else he said. But I told him that I could not easily conceive of
an