“Friar,” said Greatrakes, “when you know that your hands are bound up, you should have avoided insulting any man.  You should not have related a piece of family history—­perhaps false from beginning to end—­in the presence of a gentleman so intimately connected with that family as you knew him to be.  It was no topic for a common room like this, and it was quite unjustifiable in you to have introduced it.”

“I feel, sir, that you are perfectly right,” replied the good-natured friar, “and I ask Mr. Woodward’s pardon for having, without the slightest intention of offence to him, done so.  You will recollect that he himself expressed an anxiety to hear it.”

“All I say upon the subject,” observed the Pythagorean, “is simply this, that Pythagoras himself could not have cured me of the rheumatism as my friend Valentine Greatrakes has done.”

“You will require no cure, and, what is better, no necessity for cure,” replied Greatrakes, smiling, “if you will have only common sense, my dear Cooke.  Clothe yourself in warm and comfortable garments, and feed your miserable carcass with good beef and mutton, and, in addition to which, like myself and the friar here, take a warm tumbler of good usquebaugh punch to promote digestion.”

“I will never abandon my principles,” replied the philosopher.  “Linen and vegetable diet forever.”

Manifold was asleep after his gorge,—­a sleep from which he never awoke,—­but Doctor Doolittle, anxious to secure Cooke as a patient, became quite eloquent upon the advantages of a vegetable diet, and of the Pythagorean system in general; after which the conversation of the night closed, and the guests departed to their respective lodgings.

The night was still an beautiful.  The moon was about to sink, but still she emitted that faint and shadowy light which lends such calm, but picturesque beauty to the nocturnal landscape.  Woodward was alone; but it would be difficult to find language in which to describe the bitterness of his feelings and the frightful sense of his disappointment on finding, not only that his infamous design upon the life of Alice Goodwin had been frustrated, but on feeling certain that she had been restored to perfect health before his eyes.  This, however, was not the worst of it.  He had calculated on killing her, and consequently of securing the twelve hundred a year, on the strength of which he and his mother could confidently negotiate with the old nobleman, who always slept with one eye open.  In the venom and dark malignity of his heart he cursed Alice Goodwin, he cursed Valentine Greatrakes, he cursed the world, and he cursed God, or rather would have cursed him had he believed in the existence of such a being.

In this mood of mind he was proceeding to his lodgings, when he espied before him the Shan-dhinne-dhuv, or Black Spectre with the middogue in his hand.  He stood and looked at it steadily.

“What is this?” said he, addressing the figure before him.  “What pranks are you playing now?  Do you think me a fool?  What brought you here? and what do you mean by this pantomimic nonsense, Mr. Conjurer?”