MULCIfiER SMITH. 519 



or some member of their respective families. If he slept, he dreamed 

 of their importunities, and his own eloquent appeals to their sympathies 

 and clemency ; in truth, sleeping or waking, he was sorely harrassed by 

 these two-fold torments. " What can I do ?" was often asked, but 

 answer there was none ; and straightway the phantoms would re-appear, 

 in still more vivid colours, more distinct outline, than before. 



Whilst Mulciber was thus wrestling with his memory, the splash of 

 oars struck upon his ear, and a small boat-party of men and women 

 rounded the point, and approached that part of the shore whereon he 

 lay. He looked, and thought he beheld his eternal pursuers in the 

 living flesh before him. It is true, that Mr. Truefit was short, spare, 

 and pallid, and Mr. Firstfloor tall, sturdy, and florid ; and, therefore, 

 bore no striking resemblance to each other ; but habits of long and 

 anxious speculation upon a subject intimately connected with their 

 persons, had at last so blended and associated their corporeal peculiarities 

 together in the mind's eye of Mulciber, that an artificial identity had 

 been somehow established between them and every other male member 

 of the community who chanced to come within the field of his optics. 

 He had been hourly, daily, and weekly, under this delusion, yet the 

 oft detected mistakes had failed to correct his perverted visuality. But 

 could he be mistaken now ? Was it them, indeed*; was that young 

 woman in the pink bonnet, Miss Amelia, his landlord's daughter ; was 

 the other, in the green silk dress, Mrs. Truefit ? It was it must be- 

 lt could be no others ! Should he rise and run, or turn on his side and 

 sham somnolence ? Cui bono ? He would be recognised by his garb or 

 his gait, in either act. Besides, why flee ? Mulciber was a nervous 

 man that is to say, mental worry had made him a bit of a coward ; 

 and though neither of his creditors was actually aware of his pressing 

 difficulties, yet he who knew them so well himself, and had so long 

 dwelt in anticipation of the inevitable explosion, by and-bye, had uncon- 

 sciously deluded himself with the belief that they, too, by some 

 inscrutable and intuitive process, must have acquired a similar informa- 

 tion. His heart was in his throat, and burning hot. What should he 

 do ? Desperation came to his aid, and he resolved to dare the worst. 

 Sitting bolt upright, he gently averted his head, and tried to look calm, 

 contemplative, and indifferent ; it was a bitter effort. The boat 

 approached the voices grew louder a laugh from the ladies twanged 

 on his ear : what a stinging mockery is human laughter to those who 

 cannot rejoice ! He thought he heard the name of Smith pronounced by 

 one of the party ; he knew of but one Smith in the living world, replete 

 as it is with Smiths, and that was himself ! Again it reached him he 

 could not be deceived ; it was them he heard it was him they named ! 

 The oars cease to dip again,- t -the boat stops ; he sees it not, but knows 

 it must almost touch him ; and, as one who, long watching the progress 

 of the gathering storm, hears at length the confirmatory thunder-clap, 

 so heard Mulciber the ringing cry of "SMITH" close upon his tympanum. 



How frequently do our most exquisitely elaborate conjectures prove 

 deceptive ! We are prone to build up suppositions upon the most 

 approved principles of logical induction, and one simple fact, out of a 

 myriad of others which might as naturally have occurred, is at once 

 sufficient to subvert what we stupidly imagined to be an inevitable 



