wed_ me the door," said the doctor gravely but gracefully,
in his old fashion admirably maintained.

"If one of you wasn't Endecott Linden," said Mr. Motley throwing the
end of his cigar overboard, "I should think you had made acquaintance
on a highway robbery."

"Instead of which, it was in the peaceful town of Pattaquasset," said
Mr. Linden.

"Permit me to request the reason of Mr. Motley's extraordinary guess,"
said the doctor.

"So natural to say where you've met a man--if there's no reason against
it," said the other coolly. "But you don't say it was in Pattaquasset,
doctor? Were _you_ ever there?"

"Depends entirely on the decision of certain questions in
metaphysics,"--said the doctor. "As for instance, whether anything that
is, _is_--and the matter of personal identity, which you know is
doubtful. I know the _appearance_ of the place, Motley."

"Are there any pretty girls there?" said Mr. Motley, carelessly, but
keeping his eye rather on Mr. Linden than the doctor.

"Mr. Linden can answer better than I," said Dr. Harrison, whose eye
also turned that way, and whose tone changed somewhat in spite of
himself. "There are none there that could not answer any question about
Mr. Linden."--

"By the help of a powerful imagination," said the person spoken of. Mr.
Motley looked from one to the other.

"I don't know what to make of either of you," he said. "Why doctor,
Endecott Linden is a--a mere--I don't like to call him hard names, and
I can't call him soft ones! However--to be sure--the cat may look at
the king, even if his majesty won't return the compliment. Well--you
and I were never thought hard-hearted, so I'll tell you my story. Did
it ever happen--or _seem_ to happen, doctor--that you, _seeming_ to be
in Pattaquasset, went--not to church--but along the road therefrom?
Preferring the exit to the entrance--as you and I too often do?"

"It has seemed to happen to me,"--said Dr. Harrison, as if mechanically.

"Well--George Alcott and I--do you know George?--no great loss--we were
kept one Sunday in that respectable little town by a freshet. Whether
it was one of those rains that bring down more things from the sky than
water, I don't know,--George declared it was. If it wasn't, we made
discoveries."

"If you and George both used your eyes, there must have been
discoveries," said Mr. Linden. "Did you take notice how green the grass
looked after the rain? and that when the clouds were blown away the s