shook my
head despondently.

"I know, that, if you would come to our Dispensaries and join in our
exercises, you would be sensible of a softening," he observed.

"Yes, in the brain," thought I; but I still remained silent.

"You should meditate upon the value of manifestations, unknown tongues,
the laying on of hands, visions, ecstasies, and such like matters," he
continued.

"So I have," said I.

"And with no result?"

"Nothing that particularly astonishes me. I think that I hate humbug
more than I did."

"That's a good sign," he replied, after a brief, sharp glance of inquiry
at me. "This vain world is a humbug, as you phrase it. Dead Orthodoxy is
a humbug. Human reason is a humbug. We are all humbugs, unless we are
made true by Dispensation. This age will be a humbug, unless it can
be wrought into an age of miracles. If you could be brought to hate
earnestly all these things, it would be a hopeful sign."

I was on the point of disputing the hypothesis, but prudently checked
myself. Suddenly he removed my hat and put his broad, hard palm upon my
organs with an impudent dexterity which made me doubt whether he had not
been a pickpocket or a phrenological lecturer.

"I lay my hand upon your head and desire you to note the effect," said
he. "Can no life come into these dry bones? Shall they not live?
Yea, they shall live! Do you feel no irrepressible emotion, Sir,--no
shaking?"

"Not a shake," replied I,--"unless it be from the bad grading."

"Evil is mighty, but the good must eventually prevail," he observed,
impertinently cocking his snub nose toward heaven.

"I believe you are quite right in both propositions," I admitted.
"Cardinal points of mine. But excuse me, Sir, if you could spare my hat,
I should like to put it on my head."

I had lost patience with the man, partly because it irks me to have
strangers take liberties with my person, and also because I had reached
the conclusion that he was simply a shallow dissembler and rascal. In
a minute more I had cause to reconsider my charge of hypocrisy, and to
question whether he might not lay claim to the nobler distinction of
lunacy. The conductor came down the car, picking out Troubletonians with
his undeceivable eye, and leaned toward us with outstretched fingers.
Mr. Riley rose to his whole gaunt height at a jerk, and laid his hand on
the official's arm with a fierce, bony gripe, which seemed to startle
him as if it were the clutch of a skeleton.