But not the less was he very melancholy, and at the end of the second day from that morning had fallen into a dreary state of misanthropy. Ideas had begun to float through his brain which he believed to be philosophical, but which all tended to the no-good-in-anything school of thought. He had assumed a constrained look of contempt, and would hardly notice the waiter, as he declined one after another the dishes brought to him at dinner. In the evening he roamed about moodily in the twilight, asking himself psychological questions about suicide; not, indeed, intending to kill himself, but having a fancy for the subject as one of great interest. He thought that he might, perhaps, have killed himself had he not felt that his doing so would be deleterious to his sisters. As for Jones, or Smith, or Walker, in his present mood he would not have spoken to them. He was in love with solitude, and would have been severe to any Jones or any Walker who might have intruded upon him. But on the next day he makes another effort, having encountered our friend Paterfamilias, with his wife and three daughters, upon a Rhine steamboat. Like a prudent young man in such circumstances, he first speaks a word to the father, and the father admits the word graciously. Fathers so situated are always oblivious of their daughters, and never remember that they, when young men, used to make similar attempts. But mothers never forget, and with accurate measures of mental yard and foot, take inventory of all comers, weighing every gesture, and knowing the value of every stitch in the man's garment, and of every tone in the man's voice. The stitches and tones belonging to Robinson were not much in his favour. When a man is at discount with himself he is usually below par with all the world beside. When in the course of a couple of hours Robinson had remarked to Sophie,--the youthful Sophie,--that the Rhine was the monarch of rivers, the mother speaks a cautious word to Carry, the eldest daughter, and just as misanthropy was giving place to a genial love for all his kind under a pleasant smile on Sophie's mouth, the whole family whisk themselves away, and our friend is again alone.