ingly gave up a paradise,
though it had, indeed, opened upon him most seductively.

"And it was you," said Pepusch, rushing into his friend's arms,--"it
was you that I would have murdered, and, because I did not believe you,
I therefore shot myself. Oh, the madness of a mind ill at ease!"

"I pray you," said Peregrine, "I pray you come to your senses. You
speak of having shot yourself, and yet stand fresh and sound before me.
How do these things agree?"

"You are right," replied Pepusch, "it seems as if I could not speak to
you so rationally as I really do, if I had actually sent a ball through
my brain. The people, too, maintain that my pistols were not
particularly dangerous, nor, indeed, of iron, but of wood--in fact mere
toys--and so neither the duel nor the suicide could have been any thing
more than a pleasant mockery. We must have changed our parts; and I
have begun to mystify myself and play the child at the moment you have
left the world of dream to enter into real life. But be this as it may,
it is requisite that I should be certain of your generosity and my
fortune, and then the clouds will dissipate which trouble my sight, or
perhaps deceive me with the illusions of the _Fata Morgana_. Come, my
Peregrine, accompany me to the fair Doertje Elverdink."

Pepusch took his friend's arm, and was hastening off with him; but
their intended walk was spared, for the door opened, and in tripped
Doertje Elverdink, lovely as an angel, and behind her the old Swammer.
Leuwenhock, who had so long remained dumb, casting angry looks first at
Pepusch and then at Peregrine, seemed, upon seeing the old Swammerdamm,
as if struck by an electric shock. He stretched his clenched hands
towards him, and cried out in a voice hoarse with rage--"Ha! do you
come to mock me, you old deceitful monster? But you shall not succeed.
Defend yourself: your last hour has struck."

Swammerdamm started a few steps back, and as Leuwenhock was ready to
fall upon him with his telescope, drew the like arms for his defence.
The duel, which had begun at Peregrine's, seemed about to be renewed.
George Pepusch threw himself between the combatants, and while with his
left hand he beat down a murderous glance of Leuwenhock's, which would
have stretched his adversary to the earth, with the left he turned
aside the weapon of Swammerdamm, so that he could not injure
Leuwenhock. He then declared that he would not allow of any battle
between them, till he thor