The tower which Scythrop inhabited stood at the south-eastern angle of the abbey; the south-western was ruinous and full of owls; the north-eastern contained the apartments of Mr. Glowry; the north-eastern tower was appropriated to the servants, whom Mr. Glowry always chose by one of two criterions--a long face or a dismal name. The main building was divided into room of state, spacious apartments for feasting, and numerous bedrooms for visitors, who, however, were few. Occasional visits were paid by Mr. and Mrs. Hilary, but another visitor, much more to Mr. dowry's taste, was Mr. Flosky, a very lachrymose and morbid gentleman, of some note in the literary world, with a very fine sense of the grim and the tearful. But the dearest friend of Mr. Glowry, and his most welcome guest, was Mr. Toobad, the Manichean Millenarian. The twelfth verse of the twelfth chapter of Revelations was always in his mouth: "Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and of the sea, for the devil is come among you, having great wrath, because he knoweth he hath but a short time." He maintained that this precise time was the point of the plenitude of the power of the Evil Principle; he used to add that by and by he would be cast down, and a happy order of things succeed, but never omitted to add "Not in our time," which last words were always echoed by Mr. Glowry, in doleful response. Shortly after Scythrop's disappointment Mr. Glowry was involved in a lawsuit, which compelled his attendance in London, and Scythrop was left alone, to wander about, with the "Sorrows of Werter" in his hand. He now became troubled with the passion for reforming the world, and meditated on the practicability of reviving a confederacy of regenerators. He wrote and published a treatise in which his meanings were carefully wrapped up in the monk's hood of transcendental technology, but filled with hints of matters deep and dangerous, which he thought would set the whole nation in a ferment, and awaited the result in awful expectation; some months after he received a letter from his bookseller, informing him that only seven copies had been sold, and concluding with a polite request for the balance. "Seven copies!" he thought. "Seven is a mystical number, and the omen is good. Let me find the seven purchasers, and they shall be the seven golden candlesticks with which I shall illuminate the world." Scythrop had a certain portion of mechanical genius, and constructed models of cells and recesses, sliding panels and secret passages, which would have baffled the skill of the Parisian police. In his father's absence, he smuggled a dumb carpenter into his tower, and gave reality to one of these models. He foresaw that a great leader of regeneration would be involved in fearful dilemmas, and determined to adopt all possible precautions for his own preservation. In the meantime, he drank Madeira and laid deep schemes for a thorough repair of the crazy fabric of human nature. _II.--Marionetta_