door of communication between the two
bedrooms in order to listen. I put my ear to a
chink, and could hear a drowsy voice, as of a
man almost asleep, droning nonsense-verses and
weights and measures. Thus:

"If A is to B
What D is to C,
According to Bohn's deductions,
Then F is to me
What is to P;
That's my theory of conic fluxions."

Then the voice stopped like clockwork run out.
A moment after it continued, more drowsily:

"Ten gold itchebos equal ten gold copangs,
Fifteen mas equal one itchebo,
One oban equal three copangs,
One kodama equal fifteen condorines,
One managoga equal ten thousand ickmagoga,
One tattamy equal——"

Here the voice stopped, and a tremendous
sonorous snore followed. The man was mad,
that was evident; but he was harmless, and he
was asleep.

I felt in the darkness—for I had blown out
the candle—for the key. There was none; so I
contented myself with quietly placing two chairs
in such a way as that no one could open the door
without moving them and awaking me. I then
took out the key of my own bedroom door, placed
it under my pillow, and jumped into bed.

For some twenty minutes I sat up listening to
the heavy snoring of Mr. Thistlewood. I then
lay down, fell asleep, and dreamed.

Presently a low creaking noise awoke me, and
I started up in bed.

Yes, it was the maniac! There were the
chairs moving slowly back, and there was the
door opening wider and wider. Well, he might
be restless and curious and yet mean no harm;
he might be sleep-walking, and yet be amiable
and tractable. My bed was far from the door,
so I turned my head towards the door, rolled it
in the bed-clothes, leaving only one eye clear,
and lay as still as a mummy.

The door opened, and Thistlewood entered on
tiptoe. He was in his long nightgown, but
there was nothing else spectral about him. He
had his boots on, his face was red, and his smile
was as pleasant as ever.

It was just daybreak, and the cold pure grey
light showed him clearly to me as he pulled up
the blinds and looked around with great curiosity
but perfect composure.

He was talking to himself.

"Kepler," he said, "you invented the pendulum.
Bacon, you discovered turtle-soup. Rumford,
you invented the patent shaving-box. But
you are all fools compared to me, for I
discovered the egg-whipping machine, the oyster-
opener, the knife-cleaner, and Betts's brandy."

All of a sudden, the reflexion of himself in my
pier-glass caught his eye, and the sight of it
seemed to drive him to fury. He lifted his
right foot and drove it through the glass, which
shivered it into a thousand pieces. Then in a
moment he broke the legs off two chairs, and
shattered the second glass, the washing-jug, and
the glass over the fireplace.

"I know you," he cried. "I know you! You
have been following me about for years; you
dog me everywhere. I see you in the sunshine,
in the moonlight, on the walls, on the ceiling,
in the silver spoons, in the aquarium, in the
shop-windows, everywhere, and everywhere. I
will thus beat and smash you, hell-born image
of myself!"

As he said this, he pounded the fragments
almost to dust, danced on them, and laughed
as they splashed round him. Then, seizing a
huge hatchet-shaped fragment of plate-glass, he
cried, looking towards my bed:

"But where is that wretch who denied last
night that I invented perpetual motion? It
was he who filled this room with images to vex
and dog me. Stop; I'll go and get my razor;
it'll do it cleaner."

The moment he darted into his own room I
leaped out of bed, rushed into the corridor, and
quietly locked my door on the outside. Then I
tried the key in his, and finding it fitted, I locked
his door too.

I heard him scream and howl, drag down the
bed-curtains, and rush at the door, and kick, and
thump, and cut at the wood with his razor, as he
cried:

"Forty days I have been in the wilderness.
Newton, let me out, and bring me a boiled
pelican; Kepler, some brandy-and-water; and
tell the landlord, Flamstead, there's a man run
away here without paying for his bed. Cut his
throat, I tell you, for he says I didn't discover
perpetual motion!"

I ran to the end of the corridor, where some
twenty bells hung. I beat on them all, till every
person in the hotel came to my help—landlord,
waiters, chambermaids, ostlers, guests, everybody.
I told them of my narrow escape, and of
the madman, and we then arranged to secure
him—by flinging blankets over him when we
opened the door and rushed in.

We did secure the man after a tremendous
struggle, for his strength was superhuman. We
then tied his hands behind him, and sent for
the police to put a strait-waistcoat on him and,
take him into custody.

Next day his keepers arrived, and took
charge of him. It appeared that he was a
professor of St. Bees, a scientific inventor, who
had gone mad partly from over-study, but still
more from being rejected by a lady. Ever since
that rejection, he had taken it into his head that
he was so superhumanly hideous that no one,
male or female, could bear to look at him; and
he had in consequence taken a marked hatred
to all mirrors and looking-glasses, which he
made a rule of destroying wherever he found
them.

Now ready, bound in cloth, price 5s. 6d.,
THE NINTH VOLUME.