ake our own life," he answered, with a sarcastic twinge of the
mouth, "and imagine more things in five minutes than we should see or
hear below in a month."

I thought this very odd. It looked as if he had some concealed motive;
but I acquiesced in his notion, and was secretly pleased, not less at
the exchange of the din and riot for ease and quietness, than at the
opportunity it opened to him for the free play of the humor, whatever it
was, that I could plainly see was working upon him.

We drank freely--that was a great resource with him when he was in a
mood of extravagance--talked rapidly about a chaos of things, laughed
loudly, and in the pauses of the strange revel relapsed every now and
then into silence and abstraction. During these brief and sudden
intervals, the dwarf would amuse himself by drawing uncouth lines on the
table, with his head hanging over them, as if his thoughts were
elsewhere engaged, and the unintelligible pastime of his fingers were
resorted to only to hide them.

I could not tell why it was, but I felt uneasy and restless. My
companion appeared to me like a man who was mentally laboring at some
revelation, yet did not know how to begin it. He was constantly talking
at something that was evidently troubling his mind, yet he still evaded
his own purpose, as if he did not like the task to which he had set
himself. Throughout the whole time he never mentioned Astraea's name, and
this circumstance gave me additional cause for suspicion.

At last, summoning up all his energy, and fixing himself with the points
of his elbows on the table, and his long, wiry hands, which looked like
talons, stretched up into his elfin hair at each side of his face, while
his eyes, shooting out their malignant fires, were riveted upon me to
scan the effect of what he was about to say, he suddenly exclaimed,

"You have been remarked in your attentions to Astraea."

The mystery was out. And what was there in it, after all? I was a free
agent, and so was Astraea. Why should he make so much theatrical parade
about so very simple a business?

"Well!" I exclaimed, scarcely able to repress a smile, which the
exaggerated earnestness of his manner excited.

"Well! You acknowledge that it is so?"

"Acknowledge? Why should I either acknowledge or deny it? There is no
treason in it; the lady is the best judge--let me add, the only
judge--of any attentions I may have paid to her."

"But I say you have been remarked--it