rial writers, a Canadian, who had just taken out his last
naturalization papers, expressed determination that the paper must
fight Blaine. He hated Blaine, and he had reason to; for Blaine had,
during his short career as prime minister, evinced a strong
disposition to clutch all Canadians who were caught fishing for
tomcod in American waters. Therefore, Carthage _delenda est_.

The debate ran high, yet every word was spoken softly, for the most
violent excitement always precipitates a hush. Even the newsboys in
the alley caught the awful infection; they stole in and out
noiselessly and with less violence than usual, as if, in sooth, the
dumb wheels reverenced the dismal sanctity of the hour. The elevator
crept silently down with the five o'clock forms, so decently and so
composedly as scarcely to jar the bottle of green ink on the Austin
landholder's table. All at once the door opened and in stalked M.E.
Stone, silent, pallid, protentous. His wan eye comprehended the
scene instantaneously, but no twitch or tremor in his lavender lips
betrayed the emotions (whatever they might have been) that surged
beneath the clothes he wore.

Cervantes tells how that Don Quixote, in the course of one of his
memorable adventures, was shown a talking head--a head set upon a
table and capable of uttering human speech, but in so hollow and
tube-like a tone as to give one the impression that the voice came
from far away. A somewhat similar device is now exhibited in our
museums, where, upon payment of a trifling fee, you may hear the
head discourse in a voice which sounds as though it might emanate
from the tomb and from the very time of the first Pharaoh.

Mr. Stone looked and Mr. Stone spoke like a "talking head" when he
came in upon us that awful day. His face had the inhuman pallor, his
eyes the lack-lustre expression, and his tones the distant, hollow,
metallic cadence of the inexplicable machine that astounds the
patrons of dime-museums. He seemed to take in the situation at once;
knew as surely as though he had been told what we were talking about
and how terribly we were wrought up. His right arm moved
mechanically through some such gesture as Canute is supposed to have
made when he bade the ocean retire before him, and from his
bloodless lips came the memorable words--hollow, metallic, but
memorable words--"Gentlemen, be calm! be calm!"

The calmness of