After this manner talked Professor Owlsdarck. Our conversation continued long enough to show me his complete adaptation to the admiring friendship of Colonel Prowley. He had the desperate, antiquarian dilettanteism of our host, with a really accurate knowledge in unpopular, and most people would think unprofitable, branches of learning. His love of what may be called the faded upholstery and tattered millinery of history was, indeed, remarkable. His imagination was decidedly less than that of Prowley, but his capacity for genuine rummaging in the dust of ages was vastly superior. Colonel Prowley (to borrow a happy illustration from Mr. Grant White) would much rather have had the pen with which Shakspeare wrote "Hamlet" than the wit to understand just what he meant by it. Owlsdarck, on the contrary, would have preferred to understand the anatomy and habits of life of the particular goose which furnished the quill, and the exact dimensions of the onions with which it was finally served. Yet, notwithstanding a quivering sensation produced by the mouldy nature of his contemplations, I found the Professor's conversation, within the narrow limits of his specialities, intelligent and profitable. He had none of the morbid horror of giving exact information sometimes encountered in more pretentious society; and I confess it is never disagreeable to me to meet a man whose objects of pursuit are not precisely those of that commonplace, highly respectable citizen we all hope to become. It must have been an hour before Colonel Prowley rejoined us, and when he returned it was easy to see that something annoying had happened. "Ah, my dear friend," he began, "here has been a sad mistake! Your wife has shown your address to the chief leader of the party which opposes your election. Captain Strype, editor of the "Foxden Weekly Regulator," did not come here for nothing. He sent me out of the room to get some beans to illustrate the Athenian manner of voting, and then he managed to get a sight of your manuscript." "I hope it is no very serious blunder," said Kate, who had followed the Colonel to the piazza. "It was thoughtless, I admit; but the gentleman told me that he was an editor, and that it was always the custom to give the press information withheld from the general public. And then, he promised secrecy; and, after all, he had the manuscript only about five minutes,--just long enough to get an idea of the subject and its style of treatment; so I hope there's no great harm done." "I should have thought you would have remembered Strype's connection with Howke and his Indian quackery," said I, a little irritated. "But it can be no great matter, since it will only give him an hour or two more to prepare the adverse criticism with which he will honor my performance."