"If it were not for--" began Mark, with a determined look, which he suddenly checked, to add with a quiet smile, "No one knows better than you, doctor, what little store I set by thrift, or any considerations of that kind. I trust my ambition aims higher than that." "Fresh and admirable adolescence! Roseate age, when the glistening soap-bubble, Fame, hath more charms than substantial shekels! So be it, and well it is so, for without those soft illusions the aridity of existence would be insupportable, the world a desert and life a blank. And now, my boy, while I wash my hands bring out the chess-board. I'll give you a bishop to-night, and unless I am interrupted by some silly biped seeking admittance to this sphere of trouble, or some still sillier one reluctant to leave it, we'll have a snug hour or two of enjoyment. So, votary of Caïssa, to chess--to chess." Soon the polished dome of the doctor's capacious head, and the curly black pate of the young man, were bent in intense study over the checkered field of mimic battle. In silence passed the moments until a scratching at the door announced a visitor. "Ah, Dagon! Open the door, Mark, and let him in, please," said the doctor. The young man complied, and a large black Newfoundland dog walked gravely in towards the doctor, and rested his head on his master's knee to be caressed. "True friend--faithful heart! Mark, three winters ago that dog saved my life. I was called out the night of the great snowstorm to go to the Furnaces, and but for Dagon your most obedient wouldn't be here. I've told it you before, I believe, so I'll not repeat the circumstances, but I love to dwell on them. Last spring he drew a child out of the canal; he would allow himself to be cut to pieces for me, and yet they say he has no soul! The Turks say the same of women. Are we any wiser? They say, too, he has no reason. Look at his expressive, sagacious eye. The gibbering idiot has a soul, the vilest miscreant reason; but this noble animal has neither, 'tis said, and man's vanity invents instinct! O man--man, what a conceited fool thou art! Check, eh? Ha! a bold move, my boy." The doctor's speculations were cut short by a brilliant stroke on the part of his adversary, and as the game is becoming more absorbing, and the players less communicative, we will leave them, to digress a little.