“Quite so! And that finishes it. You have now had the privilege of quoting in the course of one conversation your complete collected works, from cover to cover: and that ought to leave any authoress in a fairly amiable frame of mind. My complaint, then, ma’am, is that you have exhausted my time rather than your subject. There should be by all means a second paragraph. You see, dear lady,—and I am speaking now from the professional knowledge of a god,—it is the gist of every religion that—still to pursue your bibliomaniacal metaphor,—one has but to turn over that page in order to begin upon the most splendid of romances.” “What kind of romance can any dead man be getting pleasure out of in his dark grave?” the Sphinx asked, in frank surprise. “Well, I must not speak over-hastily. I cannot supply offhand your second paragraph until I have learned what the Dirghic religion states to be the nature of this second paragraph.... For, you conceive, ma’am, in the opinion of many wise and virtuous persons that paragraph deals with a voyaging in the great sun boat, to a hidden land very far down in the west, after the heart of each passenger has been weighed against a feather, and forty-two judges have passed favorably upon his claims to free transportation. But dissenters, just as wise and virtuous, and just as numerous, declare the subject of that paragraph to be a pleasure garden in which properly behaved persons will recline in continuous tipsiness upon golden couches covered with green cushions, cosily shaded by lotus- and banana-trees, and will have no other occupation than perpetually to remove the virginity of large-eyed celestial ladies. Yet, other sages declare that paragraph to deal with the crossing of a bridge—in which transit a peculiarly obliging dog will serve as the guide,—into the presence of the bright Amshaspands. Whereas, still other estimable people contend that your second paragraph should treat of a four-square city builded of gold and jasper, upon a twelve-fold foundation of various precious stones, and irrigated by its own private crystal sea.... For, I repeat, ma’am, the best-thought-of religions vary quite noticeably as to the nature of this second paragraph: and it would be wholly a sad thing if by speaking over-hastily I were to run counter to my own mythology. But, in any case, I have no sympathy whatever with the mental morbidity of such materialism as would deny the existence of any kind of second paragraph.” Then Gerald frowned, and he rode on. 23. Odd Transformation of a Towel GERALD now passed beyond Turoine, and, crossing Mispec Moor, he came thus to the tumbled-down hut of a decrepit old woman. “And how are you called, ma’am?” “What is that to you?” she answered, peevishly. And this wrinkled creature seemed to Gerald remarkably red and inflamed and regrettably hideous among her tousled tresses.