The worthy clergyman stood as if rooted to the ground, and, with his usual habit of thinking aloud exclaimed to himself, "My fancy has played me many a bewildering trick, but this is the most extraordinary of them all!--What can this young man think of me? It must have been my conversation with that unhappy young lady that has made such an impression upon me as to deceive my very eyesight, and causes me to connect with her history the face of the next person that I met--What _must_ the stranger think of me!" "Why, what every one thinks of thee that knows thee, prophet," said the friendly voice of Touchwood, accompanying his speech with an awakening slap on the clergyman's shoulder; "and that is, that thou art an unfortunate philosopher of Laputa, who has lost his flapper in the throng.--Come along--having me once more by your side, you need fear nothing. Why, now I look at you closer, you look as if you had seen a basilisk--not that there is any such thing, otherwise I must have seen it myself, in the course of my travels--but you seem pale and frightened--What the devil is the matter?" "Nothing," answered the clergyman, "except that I have even this very moment made an egregious fool of myself." "Pooh, pooh, that is nothing to sigh over, prophet.--Every man does so at least twice in the four-and-twenty hours," said Touchwood. "But I had nearly betrayed to a stranger, a secret deeply concerning the honour of an ancient family." "That was wrong, Doctor," said Touchwood; "take care of that in future; and, indeed, I would advise you not to speak even to your beadle, Johnie Tirlsneck, until you have assured yourself, by at least three pertinent questions and answers, that you have the said Johnie corporeally and substantially in presence before you, and that your fancy has not invested some stranger with honest Johnie's singed periwig and threadbare brown joseph--Come along--come along." So saying, he hurried forward the perplexed clergyman, who in vain made all the excuses he could think of in order to effect his escape from the scene of gaiety, in which he was so unexpectedly involved. He pleaded headache; and his friend assured him that a mouthful of food, and a glass of wine, would mend it. He stated he had business; and Touchwood replied that he could have none but composing his next sermon, and reminded him that it was two days till Sunday. At length, Mr. Cargill confessed that he had some reluctance again to see the stranger, on whom he had endeavoured with such pertinacity to fix an acquaintance, which he was now well assured existed only in his own imagination. The traveller treated his scruples with scorn, and said, that guests meeting in this general manner, had no more to do with each other than if they were assembled in a caravansary.