And, poor Toby! he _did_ set about it in earnest, insomuch that he sewed side-seams to tops and bottoms of new garments, and stitched circular patches on square rents, and squares on circular apertures in the damaged attire he undertook to repair, and mislaid his thread where he could not find it for hours,--and pricked his thumbs and fingers, half-callous though they were, with the needles,--and heated his goose till he burnt the cloth,--and fell into blunders and mishaps of most awful consequence to his professional reputation, day by day, more thickly and disastrously, until the very disasters themselves convinced him that he was approaching a climax of knowledge in the gloomy science of which he had now become so devoted a student. The witches knew--foul, cunning, devil-dealers that they were--they knew, although he did not, as yet, ken _who_ they were, that he was about to become a match for them; and, therefore, they were thus bedevilling him and his cloth, and goose, and shears, and thimble, and needles, in this "hey-day, hide-and-seek, burn-it-and-bother-it," sort of way. Toby would not "give it up," however, torment him as they might--the spiteful fiendlings! He still read and thought, and thought and read, and compared the descriptions of feature which his books contained, with the physiognomies of all who visited his abode, until he entertained a shrewd suspicion of who were the real and identical, though secret, practisers of all this infernal mischief. Yet, as some of these had been, for years, his best and kindest employers, the witch-seer found it go sorely against the grain of his affectionate nature to provoke a quarrel with them. Often did he chide his spirit when he had permitted any of these suspicious visiters to depart with heartfelt thanks for the kindly present of a cake, or a new cheese, or a dish of butter, or half-score of eggs, with which they had coupled their order for the repair of a coat, or nether habit; and as often did he resolve to prepare himself against their next visit for a red-hot quarrel. Months elapsed before the amiable-hearted visionary could "screw his courage to the sticking-place," so as to enable him to "fall out" with his friends and benefactors: not that he feared their witchery, or the heavier harm it might bring upon him, when he had defied it. He soon lost all dread of that kind. It was his true-heartedness--his genuine gratitude--that precious quality which a rogue never feels, though he talks the most loudly about it, but which honest and noble natures cannot stifle, even when warm friends have become persecuting foes,--it was that superlative virtue which struggled to keep its citadel in gentle Toby's heart's core, and the contest with which was so troublous to him. Happily for the poor mistaken philosopher, his loving-heartedness had rendered him so dear to all who knew him, that none would believe he was in his right mind, when he suddenly became so discourteous and angry-tempered.