“Off the hooks or not, there’s not much sense in your talk either.... Runs about! What’s running to do with it? There’s your steam-engine runs, better than any horse; but just you go and tell it: ‘Turn to the left,’ ‘Stop at the publichouse,’—d’ye think it’ll turn?... Runs! ’Tis all the same thing as the ’lectric light. I’ve got a neighbour that’s lamplighter in a theatre, and he said to me, ‘Just look, this is the new fire they’ve invented!’ Well, I looked, and I thought to myself: ‘How did all that fire get in that little glass globe (’twas made just like a flower) and not break it?’ So I said to him, ‘Why doesn’t the glass crack with all that fire?’ and my neighbour just burst out laughing. ‘It’s a very dreadful sort of fire, that is,’ said he; ‘just you spit at it and see how it will hiss.’ Well, I spat at that tulip-flower, and it never hissed at all. ‘How’s that?’ says I. ‘Why,’ says he, ‘that fire’s just a made-up fire; it’s a heathen fire; it’s as cold as ice.... Just take hold of the tulip.’ I took it, and it really was like ice. But it’s fire all the same.... Now, how’s a man to know after that what’s God and what’s Mumbo Jumbo?... It’s just the same with the machine-fish and the steam-chicken—they’ve got a temperature, but they haven’t got a conscience! There you see; it was the same with the publican: it was his conscience that ached; and if he went and broke his back, it wasn’t his back that felt bad because his wife ran away—it was his soul.” “You put the cart before the horse again, my man! Why doesn’t the steam-hen lay?” “She doesn’t lay because she’s a machine invention, a creature of temperature, not a creature of God. A steam-hen has nothing but temperature; but a real hen has a conscience. That’s why she lays. She lays because she’s capable of mental reflections and considerations. There aren’t any mental reflections in temperatures, but there are in souls!...” “Are there?” “Of course there are!” “And were you ever in a madhouse?” “Never, thanks be to God!” “Glad to hear it! I was just thinking, perhaps they hadn’t looked after you properly and kept the door locked....” “No one can talk sense to a fellow like you, without being taken for a madman.... What do you know about souls?” “As much as you know about hens’ consciences, I dare say!” “I know all about them!” “Do you?” “I tell you, yes! I understand the whole soul of a hen! What’s the use of your cackling? Just you answer me one thing: Do you know how to make a hen sit?” “No, I don’t; and it’s not my business; I’m a wood merchant.” [Illustration: “TO THE ARCADIA AND MASKED BALLS.” ]