The next morning found Mr. Graham still under the spell of the evening with the Poes.  He caught himself impatiently watching the clock, for the man under whose charm he had come was to call at a certain hour, to confer with him in regard to the magazine.  He could hear him coming (stepping briskly and whistling a “Moore’s Melody”) before the rap upon the door announced him.  He came in with the bright, alert air of a man ready for action for which he has appetite.  His rarely heard laugh rang out, fresh and spontaneous, several times during the interview.  His manners were at all times those of a prince, but Mr. Graham had never seen him so genial, so gay.  The mantle of dreamer and poet had suddenly dropped from him, but the new mood had a charm all its own.

When business had been dispatched and they sat on to finish their cigars, Mr. Graham reiterated his expressions of pleasure in his visit of the evening before.

“You gave me food for thought, Mr. Poe,” said he.  “I’ve been pondering on that creed of yours for finding and keeping the secret of true happiness.  It is about the most wholesome and sane doctrine I’ve met with for some time.  I’ve determined to adopt it, and to, at least endeavor, to practice it.”

His companion smiled.

“Good!” said he.  “I only hope you’ll have better success in living up to it than I have.”

Mr. Graham’s eyebrows went up.  “I thought that was just what you did,” was his answer.

“So it is, at times; but when the blues or the imp of the perverse get hold of me all my philosophy goes to the devil, and I realize what an arch humbug I am.”

“The imp of the perverse?” questioned Mr. Graham.

“That is my name for the principle that lies hidden in weak human nature—­the principle of antagonism to happiness, which, with unholy impishness, tempts man to his own destruction.  Don’t you think it an apt name?”

“I don’t believe I follow you.”

“Then let me explain.  Did you never, when standing upon some high point, become conscious of an influence irresistibly urging you to cast yourself down?  As you listened—­fascinated and horrified—­to the voice, did you not feel an almost overwhelming curiosity to see what the sensations accompanying such a fall would be—­to know the extremest terror of it?  Your tempter was the Imp of the Perverse.

“Did you never feel a sense of glee to find that something you had said or done had shocked someone whose good opinion you should have desired?  Did you never feel a desire to depart from a course you knew to be to your interest and follow one that would bring certain harm—­possible disaster—­upon you?  Did you never feel like breaking loose from all the restraints which you knew to be for your good—­throwing off every shackle of propriety, and right, and decency?—­Mr. Graham, did you never feel like throwing yourself to the devil for no reason at all other than the desire