"Anything hilarious is as much out of place in a lecture as it would be in a sermon," interrupted Dr. Dastick, who had evidently missed the drift of his pastor's remarks. "And I rejoice that the success of our friend who has spoken this evening rebukes those vain and shallow witlings who have sometimes degraded the lyceum. I could send such fellows to make sport in the courts of luxurious princes, for they may well follow after jousts, tourneys, stage-plays, and like sugar-plums of Satan; as, indeed, we need them not in this Puritan commonwealth. But come, all of you, for an hour, to my house; for I am mistaken, if there be not in my cabinet many rare illustrations of the discourse we have just heard. I have several bones by me, which, if they belonged not to Cheops himself, may well be relics of his near relations. And as an offset to their dry and wasted estate, I have some luscious pears which are just now at full maturity." Colonel Prowley and his party had small inclination to resist the Doctor's invitation, and it was speedily agreed that the lecturer (having, as we have seen, escaped consignment to European monarchs) should have the privilege of mingling in the social life of Foxden for the next hour or so. "But you forget Professor Owlsdarck," I ventured to whisper to the Colonel. "I must see him the instant he returns. That is--I am very impatient to hear of his success. I cannot let him arrive at your house, if I am not there to meet him." My host stared a little at this impetuosity of interest, and then informed me that the carryall from Wrexford must necessarily pass Dastick's house, and that he himself would run out and stop it and bring in the Professor. "No," I exclaimed, with energy; "promise that I may go out and receive Owlsdarck alone, or I cannot go to Dr. Dastick's." "I doubt if there would be any precedent for this," argued the Colonel, gravely. "Then we must make one," I asserted. "For surely nothing is more appropriate than that a lecturer, returning from his exercise, whether in triumph or defeat, should be first encountered by some brother of the craft who can have adequate sympathy with his feelings." After some demur, Colonel Prowley consented to adopt this view of the case; and we passed out of the hot lecture-room into the still, fresh night. Here Kate took my arm and we managed for an instant to lag behind the crowd. "I am not mad yet," I said, "though when I began that extraordinary lecture you must have thought me so." "For a few moments," replied my wife, "I was utterly bewildered; but soon, of course, I guessed the explanation. You appeared before the Foxden audience with Professor Owlsdarck's lecture." "And he appeared with my poem before the audience in Wrexford." "Good Heavens!" exclaimed Kate, "I never thought of that part of it!"