ncenz, "of that delightful meal in
Katzenberger's _Badereise_, and of the poor exciseman who has almost to
choke himself with the bites of food which are slid to him over the
'Trumpeter's muscle,' the Buccinator, although that scene would not be
of much service to Sylvester for a new piece."

"The great Kazenberger," said Theodore, "whom women do not like on
account of the robustness of his cynicism, I formerly knew very well.
He was intimate with my uncle, and I could, at some future time, tell
you many delightful things concerning him."

Cyprian had been sitting in profound thought, and seemed to have been
scarcely attending to what the others had been saying. Theodore tried
to arouse his attention and direct it to the hot punch which he had
brewed as the best corrective of the evil influence of the weather.

"Beyond a doubt," said Cyprian, "this is the germ of insanity, if it is
not actually insanity itself."

The friends looked questionably at each other.

"Ha!" cried Cyprian, getting up from his chair and looking round him
with a smile, "I find I have spoken out, aloud, the conclusion of the
mental process which has been going on within me in silence. After I
have emptied this glass of punch and duly lauded Theodore's art of
preparing that liquid after its mystic proportions, and due relations
of the hot, strong and sweet, I will simply point out that there is a
certain amount of insanity, a certain dose of crackiness, so deeply
rooted in human nature, that there is no better mode of getting at the
knowledge of it than by carefully studying it in those madmen and
eccentrics whom we by no means have to go to madhouses to come across,
but whom we may meet with every hour of the day in our daily course;
and, in fact, best of all in the study of our own selves, in each of
whom these is present a sufficient quantum of that 'precipitate
resulting from the chemical process of life.'"

"What has brought you back to the subject of insanity and the insane?"
asked Lothair, in a tone of vexation.

"Do not lose your temper, dear Lothair," said Cyprian, "we were talking
on the subject of society conversation; and then I thought of two
mutually antagonistic classes of characters which are often fatal to
social talking. There are people who find it impossible to get away
from ideas which have come to occupy their minds; who go on repeating
the same things over and over again, for hours, no matter what turn the
conversation