"Well, my boy," exclaimed Millthorpe to Pierre; "you are in the Inferno dream yet. Look; that's what people call an _easel_, my boy. An _easel_, an _easel_--not a _weasel_; you look at it as though you thought it a weasel. Come; wake up, wake up! You ordered it, I suppose, and here it is. Going to paint and illustrate the Inferno, as you go along, I suppose. Well, my friends tell me it is a great pity my own things aint illustrated. But I can't afford it. There now is that Hymn to the Niger, which I threw into a pigeon-hole, a year or two ago--that would be fine for illustrations." "Is it for Mr. Glendinning you inquire?" said Pierre now, in a slow, icy tone, to the porter. "Mr. Glendinning, sir; all right, aint it?" "Perfectly," said Pierre mechanically, and casting another strange, rapt, bewildered glance at the easel. "But something seems strangely wanting here. Ay, now I see, I see it:--Villain!--the vines! Thou hast torn the green heart-strings! Thou hast but left the cold skeleton of the sweet arbor wherein she once nestled! Thou besotted, heartless hind and fiend, dost thou so much as dream in thy shriveled liver of the eternal mischief thou hast done? Restore thou the green vines! untrample them, thou accursed!--Oh my God, my God, trampled vines pounded and crushed in all fibers, how can they live over again, even though they be replanted! Curse thee, thou!--Nay, nay," he added moodily--"I was but wandering to myself." Then rapidly and mockingly--"Pardon, pardon!--porter; I most humbly crave thy most haughty pardon." Then imperiously--"Come, stir thyself, man; thou hast more below: bring all up." As the astounded porter turned, he whispered to Millthorpe--"Is he safe?--shall I bring 'em?" "Oh certainly," smiled Millthorpe: "I'll look out for him; he's never really dangerous when I'm present; there, go!" Two trunks now followed, with "L. T." blurredly marked upon the ends. "Is that all, my man?" said Pierre, as the trunks were being put down before him; "well, how much?"--that moment his eyes first caught the blurred letters. "Prepaid, sir; but no objection to more." Pierre stood mute and unmindful, still fixedly eying the blurred letters; his body contorted, and one side drooping, as though that moment half-way down-stricken with a paralysis, and yet unconscious of the stroke. His two companions, momentarily stood motionless in those respective attitudes, in which they had first caught sight of the remarkable change that had come over him. But, as if ashamed of having been thus affected, Millthorpe summoning a loud, merry voice, advanced toward Pierre, and, tapping his shoulder, cried, "Wake up, wake up, my boy!--He says he is prepaid, but no objection to more." "Prepaid;--what's that? Go, go, and jabber to apes!" "A curious young gentleman, is he not?" said Millthorpe lightly to the porter;--"Look you, my boy, I'll repeat:--He says he's prepaid, but no objection to more."