"By St. Peter! I will not be insulted, and dishonored, and defied in this outrageous manner. I swear I will have your thoughts, if I have to pluck them from your heart." "Whe-ew! Well, if I didn't always think thought was free, may I never be an interesting young widow, and captivate Thurston Willcoxen." "You impudent, audacious, abandoned--" "Ching a ring a ring chum choo! And a hio ring tum larky!" sang the elf, dancing about, seizing the bellows and flourishing it over her head like a tambourine, as she danced. "Be still, you termagant. Be still, you lunatic, or I'll have you put in a strait-jacket!" cried the exasperated professor. "Poor fellow!" said Jacko, dropping the bellows and sidling up to him in a wheedling, mock-sympathetic manner. "P-o-o-r f-e-l-l-o-w! don't get excited and go into the highstrikes. You can't help it if you're ugly and repulsive as Time in the Primer, any more than Thurston Willcoxen can help being handsome and attractive as Magnus Apollo." "It was of him, then, you were thinking, minion? I knew it! I knew it!" exclaimed the professor, starting up, throwing down his book, and pacing the floor. "Bear it like a man!" said Jacko, with solemnity. "You admit it, then. You--you--you--" "'Unprincipled female.' There! I have helped you to the words. And now, if you will be melo-dramatic, you should grip up your hair with both hands, and stride up and down the floor and vociferate, 'Confusion! distraction! perdition! or any other awful words you can think of. That's the way they do it in the plays." "Madam, your impertinence is growing beyond sufferance. I cannot endure it." "That's a mighty great pity, now, for you can't cure it." "St. Mary! I will bear this no longer." "Then I'm afraid you'll have to emigrate!" "I'll commit suicide." "That's you! Do! I should like very well to wear bombazine this cold weather. Please do it at once, too, if you're going to, for I should rather be out of deep mourning by midsummer!" "By heaven, I will pay you for this." "Any time at your convenience, Dr. Grimshaw! And I shall be ready to give you a receipt in full upon the spot!" said the elf, rising. "Anything else in my line this morning, Dr. Grimshaw? Give me a call when you come my way! I shall be much obliged for your patronage," she continued, curtseying and dancing off toward the door. "By the way, my dear sir, there is a lecture to be delivered this evening by our gifted young fellow-citizen, Mr. Thurston Willcoxen. Going to hear him? I am! Good-day!" she said, and kissed her hand and vanished. Grim was going crazy! Everybody said it, and what everybody says has ever been universally received as indisputable testimony. Many people, indeed, averred that Grim never had been quite right--that he always had been queer, and that since his mad marriage with that flighty bit of a child, Jacquelina, he had been queerer than ever.