row. As it is, Miss
Deedy occupies a somewhat abnormal position, dangling, like Mahomet's
coffin, between the Church and the world. That, again, is Miss Deedy's
peculiarity.

Miss Wiggles is a "sensitive." That is a new vocation struck out by the
prolific ingenuity of the female mind. Commonplace doctors would simply
call her "hysterical;" but she calls herself magnetic. She is stout and
inclined to a large appetite, particularly affecting roast pork with
plenty of seasoning; but she passes readily into "the superior
condition" under the manipulations of a male operator. She makes
nothing, save notoriety, by her clairvoyance and other peculiarities;
but she _is_ very peculiar, though the type of a larger class than is
perhaps imagined in this highly sensational age of ours.

Peculiar boys, too--what lots of them there are! What is called
affectation in a girl prevails to quite as large an extent in the shape
of endless peculiarities among boys. A certain Dick (his name is
Adolphus, but he is universally, and for no assignable reason, known as
Dick) rejoices in endorsing Darwinism by looking and acting like a human
gorilla. Dick is no fool, but assumes that virtue though he has it not.
To see him mumbling his food at meals, or making mops and mows at the
wall, you would think him qualified for Earlswood; but if it comes to
polishing off a lesson briskly or being mulct of his pudding or
pocket-money, Master Dick accomplishes the polishing process with a
rapidity that gives the lie to his Darwinian assumption.

Well, they are a source of infinite fun, these eccentrics--the comets of
our social system. They have, no doubt, an object in their
eccentricity, a method in their madness, which we prosaic planetary
folks cannot fathom. At all events, they amuse us and don't harm
themselves. They are uniformly happy and contented with themselves. Of
them assuredly is true, and without the limitation he appends, Horace's
affirmation, _Dulce est desipere_, which Mr. Theodore Martin translates,
"'Tis pleasing at times to be slightly insane."

CHAPTER XXV.

INTERVIEWING AN ASTROLOGER.

For several years--in fact ever since my first acquaintance with these
"occult" matters whereinto I am now such a veteran investigator--my
great wish has been to become practically acquainted with some Professor
of Astral Science. One friend, indeed, I had who had devoted a long
lifetime to this and kindred subjects, and of whom I shall ha