r's mind; he smiled as affably as he could, and requested the
visitor to be seated.

"Thanks!" replied he, and took the chair which the doctor moved up to
the table for him. He placed his hat and gloves on the table. There
was a brief pause, as might happen if any two friends sat down at
their ease for a chat on matters and things in general. The visitor
turned over a volume or two that lay on the table.

"The Devil," he read from one of them; "His Origin, Greatness, and
Decadence. By the Rev. A. Reville, D.D."

"Ah!" he commented quietly. "A Frenchman, I observe. If it had been an
Englishman, I should fancy he wrote the book for the sake of the rhyme
in the title. Do you know, doctor, I fancy that incredulity of his
will substitute one dash for the two periods in the reverend
gentleman's degree! I know no one greater condition of success in some
lines of operation, than to have one's existence thoroughly
disbelieved in."

The doctor forced himself to reply: "I hardly know how I came to have
the book here. Yet he does make out a pretty strong case. I confess I
would like to be certified that he is right. Suppose you allow
yourself to be convinced?" And the poor fellow grinned: it couldn't be
called a smile.

"Why, really, I'll look into it. I've considered the point though, not
that I'm sure I could choose. And you know, as the late J. Milton very
neatly observed, one would hardly like to lose one's intellectual
being, 'though full of pain;'" and he smiled, not unkindly but sadly,
and then resumed: "A Bible too. Very good edition. I remember seeing
it stated that a professional person made it his business to find
errors of the press in one of the Bible Society's editions--this very
one, I think; and the only one he could discover was a single 'wrong
font.' Very accurate work--very!"

He had been turning over the leaves indifferently as he spoke, and
laid the volume easily back. "Curious old superstition that," he
remarked, "that certain personages were made uncomfortable by this
work!" And he gave the doctor a glance, as much as to ask, in the most
delicate manner in the world, "Did you put that there to scare me
with?"

I think the doctor blushed a little. He had not really expected, you
know,--still, in case there should be any prophylactic influence--? No
harm done, in any event; and that was precisely the observation made
by the guest.

"No harm done, my dear fellow!" he said, in his calm, quiet, musical