e?"

I quickly found a name to get rid of him; invented one on the spur of
the moment, and blurted it out to stop my tormentor.

"Happolati!" said I.

"Happolati, ay!" nodded the man; and he never missed a syllable of this
difficult name.

I looked at him with amazement; there he sat, gravely, with a
considering air. Before I had well given utterance to the stupid name
which jumped into my head the man had accommodated himself to it, and
pretended to have heard it before.

In the meantime, he had laid his package on the seat, and I felt my
curiosity quiver through my nerves. I noticed there were a few grease
spots on the paper.

"Isn't he a sea-faring man, your landlord?" queried he, and there was
not a trace of suppressed irony in his voice; "I seem to remember he
was."

"Sea-faring man? Excuse me, it must be the brother you know; this man
is namely J. A. Happolati, the agent."

I thought this would finish him; but he willingly fell in with
everything I said. If I had found a name like Barrabas Rosebud it would
not have roused his suspicions.

"He is an able man, I have heard?" he said, feeling his way.

"Oh, a clever fellow!" answered I; "a thorough business head; agent for
every possible thing going. Cranberries from China; feathers and down
from Russia; hides, pulp, writing-ink--"

"He, he! the devil he is?" interrupted the old chap, highly excited.

This began to get interesting. The situation ran away with me, and one
lie after another engendered in my head. I sat down again, forgot the
newspaper, and the remarkable documents, grew lively, and cut short the
old fellow's talk.

The little goblin's unsuspecting simplicity made me foolhardy; I would
stuff him recklessly full of lies; rout him out o' field grandly, and
stop his mouth from sheer amazement.

Had he heard of the electric psalm-book that Happolati had invented?

"What? Elec--"

"With electric letters that could give light in the dark! a perfectly
extraordinary enterprise. A million crowns to be put in circulation;
foundries and printing-presses at work, and shoals of regular mechanics
to be employed; I had heard as many as seven hundred men."

"Ay, isn't it just what I say?" drawled out the man calmly.

He said no more, he believed every word I related, and for all that, he
was not taken aback. This disappointed me a little; I had expected to
see him utterly bewildered by my inventions.

I searched my brain for a couple of despera