man his contemporaries--ay, even his friends--were pleased to call Mad!” “Come, come, Curtis, you know well this is not my impression of you; you only say so jestingly.” “It's a sorry theme to crack jokes upon,” said the other, sadly. He paused, and seemed to reflect deeply for some minutes, and then, in a voice of peculiar meaning, and with a look of intense cunning in his small gray eyes, said, “We heard the name he mentioned,--Raper, Fagan's man of business. Let 's have him in, MacNaghten; the fellow is a half simpleton in many things. Let's talk to him.” “Would you ask Mr. Raper to join our breakfast?” asked Dan of the innkeeper. “He has just finished his own, sir; some bread and watercresses, with a cup of milk, are all that he takes.” “Poor fellow!” said Dan, “I see him yonder in the summer-house; he appears to be in hard study, for he has not raised his head since we entered the room. I 'll go and ask him how he is.” MacNaghten had not only time to approach the little table where Raper was seated unobserved, but even to look over the object of his study, before his presence was recognized. “German, Mr. Raper; reading German?” cried MacNaghten. “I know the characters, at least.” “Yes, sir, it is German; an odd volume of Richter that I picked up a few days ago. A difficult author at first, somewhat involved and intricate in construction: here, for instance is a passage--” “My dear friend, it is all a Greek chorus to me, or anything else you can fancy equally unintelligible.” “It is the story of an humble man, a village cobbler, who becomes by an accident of fortune suddenly rich. Now, the author, instead of describing the incidents of life and the vicissitudes that encounter him, leaves us only to guess, or rather to supply them for ourselves, by simply dwelling upon all the 'Gedänkskriege,' or mental conflicts, that are the consequences of his altered position. The notion is ingenious, and if not overlayed with a certain dreamy mysticism, would be very interesting.” “I,” said Dan, “would far rather hear of his acts than his reflections. What he did would amuse me more to know than to learn why.”