ness. "Be seated, sir--be seated.
Indeed, I am just here on the same errand--to see Mr Wolstang--eh (_a
sneeze_)--that rappee is certainly very strong. Do me the honour to
occupy the seat opposite. I understand from the servants that he is
expected soon." (_Another sneeze._)

For the first five minutes I did not form a very high opinion of this
new acquaintance. He seemed to have all the fidgety politeness and
intolerable chit-chat of a French _petit maitre_ of the old school. He
bored me with questions and apologies, hoped I felt myself comfortable;
and every interval of his speech was filled up by intolerable giggling
and sneezing. In order, as it were, to increase the latter, he kept
snuffing away at a preposterous rate; and when he addressed me, his
mouth was drawn up into a most complacent smile, and his long nose and
chin, which threatened each other like nutcrackers, thrown forward to
within a foot of my face. However, in the next five minutes he improved
upon me, from some very judicious observations, as I thought, which he
made; and in five more I became convinced that, notwithstanding his
outward frivolity and sneezing, he was far from being an ordinary man.
This impression gained such strength, that in a short time I entirely
forgot all my previous irritation, and even the reasons which brought me
there. I found that he had a complete knowledge of the different
philosophical systems of the day; among others, that of my favourite
Kant;--and on the merits of the school in the North of Germany, founded
by this great metaphysician, his opinions and mine tallied to a point.
He also seemed deeply conversant with the mathematics. This was a
subject on which I flattered myself I had few equals; but he shot far
ahead of me, displaying a knowledge which scarcely any man in Europe
could have matched. He traced the science downwards, in all its
historical bearings, from Thales, Archimedes, and Euclid, to Newton,
Euler, Leibnitz, and Laplace. In algebra, geometry, and astronomy, his
information was equally extensive. From several hints which he threw
out, I learned that he was no stranger to the science of geomancy; and
he gave me to understand that he had cast the nativities of several
individuals belonging to noble families; and that as their horoscopes
portended, such invariably was their fate in after life. Nor was his
knowledge confined to these abstruser branches of science; it embraced
the whole circle of literatur