iality, I am not without hopes that it
will eventually exert its influence even upon so difficult a subject as
the misanthrope."

"A genial misanthrope! I thought I had stretched the rope pretty hard in
talking of genial hangmen. A genial misanthrope is no more conceivable
than a surly philanthropist."

"True," lightly depositing in an unbroken little cylinder the ashes of
his cigar, "true, the two you name are well opposed."

"Why, you talk as if there _was_ such a being as a surly
philanthropist."

"I do. My eccentric friend, whom you call Coonskins, is an example. Does
he not, as I explained to you, hide under a surly air a philanthropic
heart? Now, the genial misanthrope, when, in the process of eras, he
shall turn up, will be the converse of this; under an affable air, he
will hide a misanthropical heart. In short, the genial misanthrope will
be a new kind of monster, but still no small improvement upon the
original one, since, instead of making faces and throwing stones at
people, like that poor old crazy man, Timon, he will take steps, fiddle
in hand, and set the tickled world a'dancing. In a word, as the progress
of Christianization mellows those in manner whom it cannot mend in mind,
much the same will it prove with the progress of genialization. And so,
thanks to geniality, the misanthrope, reclaimed from his boorish
address, will take on refinement and softness--to so genial a degree,
indeed, that it may possibly fall out that the misanthrope of the
coming century will be almost as popular as, I am sincerely sorry to
say, some philanthropists of the present time would seem not to be, as
witness my eccentric friend named before."

"Well," cried the other, a little weary, perhaps, of a speculation so
abstract, "well, however it may be with the century to come, certainly
in the century which is, whatever else one may be, he must be genial or
he is nothing. So fill up, fill up, and be genial!"

"I am trying my best," said the cosmopolitan, still calmly
companionable. "A moment since, we talked of Pizarro, gold, and Peru; no
doubt, now, you remember that when the Spaniard first entered Atahalpa's
treasure-chamber, and saw such profusion of plate stacked up, right and
left, with the wantonness of old barrels in a brewer's yard, the needy
fellow felt a twinge of misgiving, of want of confidence, as to the
genuineness of an opulence so profuse. He went about rapping the shining
vases with his knuckles. But it