cal
face and infidel talk,--and Pauline Ringtop, who used to say, 'The
Beautiful is the Good.' I can still hear her shrill voice, singing,
'Would that _I_ were beautiful, would that _I_ were fair!'"

There was a hearty chorus of laughter at poor Miss Ringtop's expense.
It harmed no one, however; for the tar-weed was already thick over her
Californian grave.

"Oh, I see," said Mr. Billings, "you still remember the absurdities of
those days. In fact, I think you partially saw through them then. But I
was younger, and far from being so clear-headed, and I looked upon those
evenings at Shelldrake's as being equal, at least, to the symposia of
Plato. Something in Mallory always repelled me. I detested the sight of
his thick nose, with the flaring nostrils, and his coarse, half-formed
lips, of the bluish color of raw corned-beef. But I looked upon these
feelings as unreasonable prejudices, and strove to conquer them, seeing
the admiration which he received from others. He was an oracle on the
subject of 'Nature.' Having eaten nothing for two years, except
Graham bread, vegetables without salt, and fruits, fresh or dried, he
considered himself to have attained an antediluvian purity of health--or
that he would attain it, so soon as two pimples on his left temple
should have healed. These pimples he looked upon as the last feeble
stand made by the pernicious juices left from the meat he had formerly
eaten and the coffee he had drunk. His theory was, that through a body
so purged and purified none but true and natural impulses could find
access to the soul. Such, indeed, was the theory we all held. A Return
to Nature was the near Millennium, the dawn of which we already beheld
in the sky. To be sure there was a difference in our individual views
as to how this should be achieved, but we were all agreed as to what the
result should be.

"I can laugh over those days now, Ned; but they were really happy while
they lasted. We were the salt of the earth; we were lifted above those
grovelling instincts which we saw manifested in the lives of others.
Each contributed his share of gas to inflate the painted balloon to
which we all clung, in the expectation that it would presently soar
with us to the stars. But it only went up over the out-houses, dodged
backwards and forwards two or three times, and finally flopped down with
us into a swamp."

"And that balloon was the A. C.?" suggested Mr. Johnson.

"As President of this Chapter,