“Well, I’ll leave my warrant with your big-wigs, and come after my man when they’ve got through with him,” said the New York detective, turning away.

Fearing the return of the enlightened Jarvis, I now left, and, taking the first train to Troubleton, informed some of the leading Dispensationists concerning their pastor’s calamity.  By dint of heavy bail and strong representations they saved him, together with the butcher and baker and candlestick-maker, from the disgrace of prison and the lunatic asylum.  But the adventure was the ruin of Dispensationism.  Mr. Joseph Hull had to give up Mr. John M. Riley’s valuables, and return to his seclusion at Bloomingdale.  Deprived of the apostle who had set them on fire, and overwhelmed by public ridicule, the Dispensationists lost their faith, got ashamed of their minister, and turned him adrift.  He disappeared in the great whirl of men and other circumstances which fills this wonderful country.  From time to time, during five years, I had made inquiries concerning him of mineralogists, botanists, and other vagrant characters, without getting the smallest hint as to his whereabouts.  At last he had turned up as the private prophet of three middle-aged widows.

“Jenny,” said I to my wife, “do you remember the night I frightened you so and kissed you as you lay in a fainting-fit?”

“You always say you kissed me, but I don’t believe it,” returned that dear woman whom I love, honor, and cherish.  “Yes, I remember the night well enough.”

“Well, that poor Doctor Potter, who was my Mahomet on that occasion, and led me to victory in your parlor, and was the indirect means of my getting my houri,—­I have heard from him.  He is our next neighbor.”

“Mercy on us, Frederic!  I hope not!  What mischief won’t he do to people who are so handy?”

“Don’t be worried, my dear,” said I.  “I sha’n’t go over to his religion again,—­unless, indeed, you should insist upon it.  But here he is, and still a supernaturalist.  I am anxious to know just how mad he is.  I shall call on him in a day or two.”

So I did.  One of the three widows met me with a tearful countenance and told me that Doctor Potter had disappeared.  So he had.  I think that he was ashamed to meet me again, and therefore ran away.  The widows thought not.  They came to the conclusion, that, like Enoch and Elijah before him, he had been translated.  They cried for him a good deal more than he was worth, quarreled scandalously among themselves, sold their house at a loss, and dispersed.  I know nothing more of them.  Neither do I know anything further of my neighbor, the prophet.

* * * * *

THE PILOT’S STORY.

I.

  It was a story the pilot told, with his back to his hearers,—­
  Keeping his hand on the wheel and his eye on the globe of the jack-staff,
  Holding the boat to the shore and out of the sweep of the current,
  Lightly turning aside for the heavy logs of the drift-wood,
  Widely shunning the snags that made us sardonic obeisance.