"Come along," he said. "No! drop that trash—every article of it, or else you'll be experimenting again. Come along!"
They went away together, leaving my office littered with broken glass and sea-shells. With some astonishment I followed through the warehouse to the street; they had entered a carriage and were driving rapidly away. The next morning's paper explained the whole occurrence in the following paragraph:
"Much Learning hath made him mad.—Yesterday noon an elderly lunatic, named Robert Jones, committed suicide by leaping over the parapet of London Bridge. He was in the custody at the time of Dr. Stretveskit, the celebrated keeper of the Asylum for Monomaniacs. He had been at large some days, and was traced to several publishing-houses, whither he had gone to contrive the publication of some insane vagaries. He was finally overhauled at the office of Spry, Stromboli & Co., and placed in a carriage; but seizing a favorable moment when travel was impeded upon the bridge, he burst through the glass door and cleared the parapet at a bound. Jones was an adventurous and dangerous character. Some years ago he set fire to the Shrimpshire Asylum, where his family had confined him, and went abroad upon a whale-ship; but meeting with an accident, he underwent the process of trepanning and came home more crazy than before. At one time he attempted to drown his mother, in furtherance of some strange experiment; but it was thought at the date of his death that he was recovering his wits. Among his delusions was a strange one—that he had been made viceroy over all the fishes. His body has not been recovered."
I read the last sentence with a thrill. My late visitor might even now be presiding at some finny council; and as I should have occasion to cross the sea some day, an untimely shipwreck might place me in closer relations with him. I determined, therefore, to print the manuscript which remained in my hands. May it appease his Mightiness, the King of the Fishes!
THE CIRCUIT PREACHER.
His thin wife's cheek grows pinched and pale with anxiousness intense;
He sees the brethren's prayerful eyes o'er all the conference;
He hears the Bishop slowly call the long "Appointment" rolls,
Where in His vineyard God would place these gatherers of souls.
Apart, austere, the knot of grim Presiding Elders sit;
He wonders if some city "Charge" may not for him have writ?
Certes! could they his sermon hear on Paul and Luke awreck,
Then had his talent ne'er been hid on Annomessix Neck!
Poor rugged heart, be still a pause, and you, worn wife, be meek!
Two years of banishment they read far down the Chesapeake!
Though Brother Bates, less eloquent, by Wilmington is wooed,
The Lord that counts the sparrows fall shall feed His little brood.