Upon the evening of the next day the young man discarded his books for the first time for many weeks. Hastening homewards from his daily toil, he arrayed himself in that uncomfortable garb in which he had been first privileged to behold the goddess, and betook himself, devout of heart, to the garish music-hall. He was able to make his way to the chair he had previously occupied, and here, waiting patiently, but this time alone, he again beheld the object of his worship. In all their sanctity the raptures of that former hour returned upon him. How chaste, yet how ravishing seemed this goddess in the shape of a human animal! How was it possible to doubt of her affinity with the immortals? One glance at her noble radiance sufficed to counteract the poison that was distilled by the pages of the modern authors. They openly mocked at the incarnation of divinities. They even denied an existence to a higher state. They even declared that the very life in his veins was but the expression of a coarse jest, in questionable taste, on the part of One who was old enough to know better. And yet these modern authors knew how to clothe their levity with a witty and bitter shrewdness which could counterfeit universal truth. How he could recall the cynical language of one of the chief among them: “What a stupid and tasteless farce is this, my dear friends. Here are we pierrots and harlequins, we betasselled clowns and buffoons, with many a score of other harmless, mad fools, whose names I forget, yet all have the same meaning--here are we, I say, with our silly grimaces, which make us sweat blood mixed with salt tears, here are we ruffling it in cockades and gold lace, and orders and what not; strutting about like turkeys, so that we may delude ourselves into forgetting that the whole business in which we are engaged is a harlequinade of such vile grossness that only an unpardonable oversight of some obscure and malicious Authority obtained for it a licence to be performed publicly.” With what diabolical cunning had this modern expressed himself! How true it was of that vapid farceur, William Jordan! For how many years had this poor dolt in the farce kept up his courage by pretending to kinship with the immortal ones? And here he sat to-night, poor, stupid charlatan! the derided of heaven, in his evening suit and excruciatingly tight shoes, cherishing the idea that he was about to bestow a votive offering upon one of the divinities. Yea, that master of mockery had caught the features of this William Jordan as neatly as though he alone were the archetype of poor deluded human nature! There he sat in his black coat and white tie, this stupid dolt in the farce, solemnly pretending to thoughts of goddesses. And yet this mocking modern assured him with a pretence of equal solemnity that even goddesses did not exist outside the portals of Bedlam.