king--thinking how excessively pretty I am. Now, tell the truth, and
shame the old gentleman. Did you ever, in all your life, see such a
beautiful, bewitching, tantalizing, ensnaring face as mine is?"

"I think I never saw such a fool!"

"Really? Then your holiness never looked at yourself in a mirror! never
beheld 'your natural face in a glass!' never saw 'what manner of man'
you are."

"By St. Peter! I will not be insulted, and dishonored, and defied in
this outrageous manner. I swear I will have your thoughts, if I have to
pluck them from your heart."

"Whe-ew! Well, if I didn't always think thought was free, may I never be
an interesting young widow, and captivate Thurston Willcoxen."

"You impudent, audacious, abandoned--"

"Ching a ring a ring chum choo! And a hio ring tum larky!"

sang the elf, dancing about, seizing the bellows and flourishing it over
her head like a tambourine, as she danced.

"Be still, you termagant. Be still, you lunatic, or I'll have you put in
a strait-jacket!" cried the exasperated professor.

"Poor fellow!" said Jacko, dropping the bellows and sidling up to him in
a wheedling, mock-sympathetic manner. "P-o-o-r f-e-l-l-o-w! don't get
excited and go into the highstrikes. You can't help it if you're ugly
and repulsive as Time in the Primer, any more than Thurston Willcoxen
can help being handsome and attractive as Magnus Apollo."

"It was of him, then, you were thinking, minion? I knew it! I knew it!"
exclaimed the professor, starting up, throwing down his book, and pacing
the floor.

"Bear it like a man!" said Jacko, with solemnity.

"You admit it, then. You--you--you--"

"'Unprincipled female.' There! I have helped you to the words. And now,
if you will be melo-dramatic, you should grip up your hair with both
hands, and stride up and down the floor and vociferate, 'Confusion!
distraction! perdition! or any other awful words you can think of.
That's the way they do it in the plays."

"Madam, your impertinence is growing beyond sufferance. I cannot endure
it."

"That's a mighty great pity, now, for you can't cure it."

"St. Mary! I will bear this no longer."

"Then I'm afraid you'll have to emigrate!"

"I'll commit suicide."

"That's you! Do! I should like very well to wear bombazine this cold
weather. Please do it at once, too, if you're going to, for I should
rather be out of deep mourning by midsummer!"

"By heaven, I will pay you for this."

"Any time at your