k to the deck
of the Vulcan. "What sort of a motley have we here, doctor? Do you know
many of them?"

"Yes," said the doctor slightly;--"the usual combinations of Interest
and Inclination. I wonder if we are exceptions, Linden?"

"The _usual_ combination is not, perhaps, just the best,--it is a nice
matter for a man to judge in his own case how far the proportions are
rectified."

"He can't do it. Human machinery can't do it. Can you measure the
height of those waves while they dazzle your eyes with gold and purple
as they do now?"

"Nay--but I can tell how much they do or do not throw me out of my
right course."

"What course are you on now, Linden?" said the doctor with his
old-fashioned assumption of carelessness, dismissing the subject.

"Now?" Mr. Linden repeated. "Do you mean in studies, travels, or
conversation?"

"In conversation, you have as usual brought me to a point! I mean--if I
mean anything,--the other two; but I mean nothing, unless you like."

"I do like. Just now, then, I am in the vacation before the last year
of my Seminary life,--for the rest, I am on my way to Germany."

"Finish your course there, eh?" said the doctor. "Why man, I thought
you had found the 'four azure chains' long ago."

"No, not to finish my course,--if I am kept in Germany more than a few
weeks, it will not be by 'azure' chains," said Mr. Linden.

"That it will not!" said one of the young men coming up, fresh from the
tea-table and his cigar. "Azure chains?--pooh!--Linden breaks _them_ as
easy as Samson did the green withs. How biblical it makes one to be in
company with such a theologian! But I shouldn't wonder if he was going
to Europe to join some order of friars--he'll find nothing monastic
enough for him in America."

"Mistaken your man, Motley!" said the doctor; who for reasons of his
own did not choose to quit the conversation. "The worst _I_ have to say
of him is, that if he spends an other year in Germany his hearers will
never be able to understand him!"

"Mistaken him!" said Mr. Motley--"at this time of day,--that'll do!
Where did you get acquainted with him, pray?"

"Once when I had the management of him," said the doctor coolly. "There
is no way of becoming acquainted with a man, like that."

"Once when you _thought_ you had," said Mr. Motley. "Well, where was
it?--in a dark passage when you got to the door first?"

"Whenever I have had the misfortune to be in a dark passage with him,
he has _she