“I take it, then. Let me have ten pounds; and write down there an address where I am to remit it some day or other, though I can't say when.” “There may be some difficulty about that,” said I. “Stay. I mean to be at Rome some time in the winter; send it to me there.” “To what banker?” “I have no banker; I never had a banker. There's my name, and let the post-office be the address.” “Whichever way you 're bent on going, you 're not on the road to be a rich man,” said Harpar, as he deposited my gold in his leather purse; “but I hope you 'll not lose by me. Good-bye.” He gave me his hand, not very warmly or cordially, either, and was gone ere I well knew it. CHAPTER XXXVII. MY EXPLOSION AT THE TABLE D'HÔTE I went the next morning to take leave of Harpar before starting, but found, to my astonishment, that he was already off! He had, I learned, hired a small carriage to convey him to Bregenz, and had set out before daybreak. I do not know why this should have annoyed me, but it did so, and set me a-thinking over the people whom Echstein in his “Erfahrungen,” says, are born to be dupes. “There is,” says he, “a race of men who are 'eingeborne Narren,'--'native numskulls,' one might say,--who muddy the streams of true benevolence by indiscriminating acts of kindness, and who, by always aiding the wrongdoer, make themselves accomplices of vice.” Could it be that I was in this barren category? Harpar had told me, the evening before, that he would not leave Lindau till his sprain was better, and now he was off, just as if, having no further occasion for me, he was glad to be rid of my companionship--just as if--I was beginning again to start another conjecture, when I bethought me that there is not a more deceptive formula in the whole cyclopaedia of delusion than that which opens with these same words, “just as if.” Rely upon it, amiable reader, that whenever you find yourself driven to explain a motive, trace a cause, or reconcile a discrepancy, by “just as if,” the chances are about seven to three you are wrong. If I was not in the bustle of paying my bill and strapping on my knapsack, I 'd convince you on this head; but, as the morning is a bright but mellow one of early autumn, and my path lies along the placid lake, waveless and still, with many a tinted tree reflected in its fair mirror, let us not think of knaves and rogues, but rather dwell on the pleasanter thought of all the good and grateful things which daily befall us in this same life of ours. I am full certain that almost all of us enter upon what is called the world in too combative a spirit We are too fond of dragon slaying, and rather than be disappointed of our sport, we 'd fall foul of a pet lamb, for want of a tiger. Call it self-delusion, credulity, what you will, it is a faith that makes life very livable, and, without it,