? Intense indeed must be the affection which can thus drive you to
fisticuffs! Had I beheld you billing and cooing, truly I had counselled a
judicial separation!'

"My wife and I looked at each other, and by a common impulse made at our
utmost speed for the gate of the Palace of Illusion.

"Alas! it is one thing to enter and another to quit that domain of
enchantment. The golden clouds enwrapt us still, cates and dainties tempted
us as of old, the most bewitching strains detained us spellbound. The giant
and dragon warders, indeed, offered no violent resistance, they simply
turned into open portals which appeared to yield us egress, but proved
entrances to interminable labyrinthine mazes. At last we escaped by
resolutely, following the exact opposite track to that which we observed to
be taken by a poet, who was chasing a phantom of Fame with a scroll of
unintelligible and inharmonious verse.

"The moment that we emerged from the enchanted castle we knew ourselves and
each other for what we were, and fell weeping into each other's arms. So
feeble were we that we could hardly move, nevertheless we have made a shift
to crawl hither, trusting to your hospitality to recruit us from the
sawdust and ditch-water which we vehemently suspect to have been our diet
during the whole of our residence."

"Eat and drink without stint and without ceremony," rejoined their host,
"provided only that somewhat remain for the guests whom I see approaching."

And in a few moments the fugitives from the Palace of Illusion were
reinforced by travellers from the Palace of Truth, whose backs were most
determinately turned to that august edifice.

"My friends," said the youth last arrived, when the first greetings were
over, "Truth's Palace might be a not ineligible residence were not the
inmates necessitated not merely to know the truth but to speak it, and did
not all innocent embellishments of her majestic person become entirely
inefficient and absolutely nugatory. For example, the number of my wife's
grey hairs speedily confounded me; and how should it be otherwise, when the
excellent dye she had brought with her had completely lost its virtues? She
on her part found herself continually obliged to acquaint me with the
manifold defects she was daily discovering in my mind and person, which I
was unable to deny, frequently as I opened my mouth for that purpose. It is
true that I had the satisfaction of pointing out equal defects in herself