idden? Come forth! Appear!"

Thus invoked, there toddled into the room the master of the tavern--a
round-bellied, short-legged individual, whose rosy gills and
Bacchus-like appearance proved his devotion to the jolly god whose
high-priest he was.

"Sit down here!" cried the mad student, forcing him into a chair; "and
now, Raphael and gentlemen all, be pleased to shorten your faces
again, and drink your wine as if one with a three after it were an
unknown combination of numerals."

The conversation now took a direction naturally given to it by what
had just occurred, and the origin and causes of the popular prejudice
against the number Thirteen were discussed.

"It cannot be denied that there is something mysterious in the
connection and combination of numbers," observed a student in
philosophy; "and Pythagoras was right enough when he sought the
foundation of all human knowledge in the even and uneven. All over the
world the idea of something complete and perfect is associated with
even numbers, and of something imperfect and defective with uneven
ones. The ancients, too, considered even numbers of good omen, and
uneven ones as unpropitious."

"It is really a pity," cried the mad student, "that you philosophers
should not be allowed to invert and re-arrange history in the manner
you deem fitting. You would soon torture the crooked stream of time
into a straight line. I should like to know from what authors you
derive your very original ideas in favour of even numbers. As far as
my reading goes, I find that number three was considered a sacred and
a fortunate number by nearly all the sects of antiquity, not excepting
the Pythagoreans. And the early Romans had such a respect for the
uneven numbers, that they never allowed a flock of sheep to be of any
number divisible by two."

The philosopher did not seem immediately prepared with a reply to this
attack.

"You are all of you looking too far back for the origin of the curse
that attends the number Thirteen," interposed Raphael. "Think only of
the Lord's Supper, which is rather nearer to our time than Pythagoras
and the Roman shepherds. It is since then that Thirteen has been a
stigmatized and fatal number. Judas Iscariot was the Thirteenth at
that sacred table and believe me it is no childish superstition that
makes men shun so unblest a number."

"Here is Solling, who has not given his opinion yet," cried another of
the party, "and yet I am sure he has somethi