ure to think of smoking in your pretty parlor, sir,"
said he. "You know cigar smoke hangs around the curtains for days,
and--"

"Never mind the curtains," I replied. "I don't keep Havanas here, though
I suppose we must soon, as that appears to be a constituent in the new
education to which we old fossils are being subjected. But if you have a
cigar-case about you, light up, like a good fellow. You have to say
something of importance, I think, and they say a cigar promotes easy and
consecutive thought."

"Very many thanks, sir," he said. "Then, with your permission, I will."

He smoked quietly for a few seconds, and it was a good cigar, I can tell
you. The fragrance filled the whole house. Then I broke the ice:--

"Now, my curate has had several conferences with you about religion, and
he told me he was going to try the _Kampaner Thal_."

"Oh, yes! so he did, indeed. He has been very kind."

I should say here that my theological friend and neighbor had written
me: "I have hunted up all my cyclopaedias, and can find no trace whatever
of that thing about which you were inquiring. From the word _Kampaner_,
I suspect it has something to do with bells. Perhaps your curate wants a
chime for your cathedral at Kilronan. When you get them, select C sharp,
or B flat, and put it around his neck, that we may know where to find
him. Yours truly--"

"Now," I said to Mr. Ormsby, "I do not know whether that _Kampaner Thal_
is bird, beast, fish, or insect; whether it is a powerful drug or a new
system of hypnotism."

"Oh, 't is none of these dreadful things," he said, laughing; "'t is
only a little book. Here it is! I always carry it about with me. It is
really very beautiful."

I handled the little duodecimo with suspicion; then gave it back.

"It has done you a lot of good, I suppose?" I said, I am afraid, with a
certain amount of contempt.

"I can't say it has," he replied sadly; then lapsed into moody
reflection.

Now, gloom is the one thing I cannot tolerate; so to rouse him from his
reverie, and possibly from a slight, venial prompting of curiosity, I
asked him to read some passages for me.

"My old sight cannot bear much of a strain," I said, "and the print is
mighty small. Now, like a good fellow, pick out some good things, and
read them slowly, for perhaps I may require to punctuate them."

So he read in a calm even monotone, without inflection, but with many
pauses, whilst I watched every syllable and measured