the feeling that prompts me to wish to
see that unfortunate man on the Bowery who exhibits his forehead, which
is sixteen inches high, beginning with his eyebrows, for a dime. The
strange, the bizarre in nature, has always interested me. The more
unnatural the nature, the more I gloat upon it. From that point of view
I do most earnestly hope that when you are inspired with a work you will
let me at least see it."

"Very well," answered the Idiot. "I shall put your name down as a
subscriber to the _Idiot Monthly Magazine_, which some of my friends
contemplate publishing. That is what I mean when I say I may shortly
lose control of myself. These friends of mine profess to have been so
impressed by my dicta that they have asked me if I would allow myself to
be incorporated into a stock company, the object of which should be to
transform my personality into printed pages. Hardly a day goes by but I
devote a portion of my time to a poem in which the thought is
conspicuous either by its absence or its presence. My schemes for the
amelioration of the condition of the civilized are notorious among those
who know me; my views on current topics are eagerly sought for; my
business instinct, as I have already told you, is invaluable to my
employer, and my fiction is unsurpassed in its fictitiousness. What more
is needed for a magazine? You have the poetry, the philanthropy, the
man of to-day, the fictitiousness, and the business instinct necessary
for the successful modern magazine all concentrated in one person. Why
not publish that person, say my friends, and I, feeling as I do that no
man has a right to the selfish enjoyment of the great gifts nature has
bestowed upon him, of course can only agree. I am to be incorporated
with a capital stock of five hundred thousand dollars. One hundred
thousand dollars' worth of myself I am to be permitted to retain; the
rest my friends will subscribe for at fifty cents on the dollar. If any
of you want shares in the enterprise I have no doubt you can be
accommodated."

"I'm obliged to you for the opportunity," said the Doctor. "But I have
to be very careful about things I take stock in, and in general I
regard you as a thing in which I should prefer not to take stock."

"And I," observed Mr. Pedagog--"I have never up to this time taken any
stock in you, and I make it a rule to be guided in life by precedent.
Therefore I must be counted out."

"I'll wait until you are listed at the Stock