wagger on, trusting the prompter's voice;
For mountains tipped with fire back up the scene,
Out of the coppice roars the tiger's voice:
The lightning's touch is death; the thunder rends
The very rocks whereon its anger lights,
The paths are mined with gins; and giants wait
To slay me should I speak with faltering tongue
Their crafty shibboleth! Most dearest coz,
This part you offer bids me play with death!
I'll none of it.
--_Vision of Cosimo_.

"Comin' round all right, now, suh?" said the learned-looking porter.
"Will you go to the Calumet House, as usual, suh? Ca'iage waitin', if
you feel well enough to move, suh."

"I'm quite well," said Mr. Amidon, though he did not look it, "and will
go to the--what hotel did you say?"

"Calumet, suh; I know you make it yo' headquahtahs thah."

"Quite right," said Mr. Amidon; "of course. Where's the carriage and
my grips?"

He had never heard of the Calumet; but he wanted, more than anything
else then, privacy in which he might collect his faculties and get
himself in hand, for his whole being was in something like chaos. On
the way, he stopped the cab several times to buy papers. All showed
the fatal date. He arrived at the palatial hotel in a cab filled with
papers, from which his bewildered countenance peered forth like that of
a canary-bird in the nesting-season. He was scarcely within the door,
when obsequious servants seized his luggage, and vied with one another
for the privilege of waiting on him.

"Why, how do you do?" said the clerk, in a manner eloquent of delighted
recognition. "Your old room, I suppose?"

"Yes, I think so," said Mr. Amidon.

The clerk whirled the register around, and pointing with his pen, said:

"Right there, Mr. Brassfield."

Mr. Amidon's pen stopped midway in the downward stroke of a capital F.

"I think," said he, "that I'll not register at present. Let me have
checks for my luggage, please--I may not stay more than an hour or so."

"As you please," said the clerk. "But the room is entirely at your
service, always, you know. Here are some telegrams, sir. Came this
morning."

He took and eyed the yellow envelopes with "E. Brassfield" scrawled on
them, as if they had been infernal machines; but he made no movement
toward opening them. Something in the clerk's look admonished him that
his own was extraordinary. He felt that he must seek solitude. To be
called by this new and strange name;