“I was consigned to Euripius, the divinity of whirlpools.  In vain I struggled in his watery arms; the swift current bore me circling away, and finally whirled me with frightful velocity.  My feet were shaken asunder, my integument softened, my brain reeled.  I was passed from eddy to eddy; I became drunken with emotion; I suffered all the tortures of the lost.  A waterspout lifted me from the clutch of the sea, and deposited me upon the dry land, close to the home of my infancy.

“I have passed the weary hours of my penance in arranging the memoirs which follow.  Science has again wooed me with her allurements; the stars continue their correspondence.  I have not despaired of the great secret of immortality; and though these hairs are few and white, I shall be rejuvenated in the tranquil depths of the water, and reassert for ages my rightful dominion over the fish!”

I was in doubt whether to laugh or wonder when the Ancient Mariner concluded; but I was relieved from passing judgment upon his article by the unceremonious entrance of a tall, lithe, gray-eyed person, who wore gold seals and carried a thick walking-stick.  The naturalist appeared to be bent on diving through the floor, and swimming away through the cellar; but he caught the stern, keen eye of the stranger and cowered.  The tall man lifted his cane, and struck the manuscript out of his Highness’s hands; he demolished the microscope at a blow, and flung the geological hammer out of the window.

“Come along,” he said.  “No! drop that trash—­every article of it, or else you’ll be experimenting again.  Come along!”

They went away together, leaving my office littered with broken glass and sea-shells.  With some astonishment I followed through the warehouse to the street; they had entered a carriage and were driving rapidly away.  The next morning’s paper explained the whole occurrence in the following paragraph: 

“Much Learning hath made him mad.—­Yesterday noon an elderly lunatic, named Robert Jones, committed suicide by leaping over the parapet of London Bridge.  He was in the custody at the time of Dr. Stretveskit, the celebrated keeper of the Asylum for Monomaniacs.  He had been at large some days, and was traced to several publishing-houses, whither he had gone to contrive the publication of some insane vagaries.  He was finally overhauled at the office of Spry, Stromboli & Co., and placed in a carriage; but seizing a favorable moment when travel was impeded upon the bridge, he burst through the glass door and cleared the parapet at a bound.  Jones was an adventurous and dangerous character.  Some years ago he set fire to the Shrimpshire Asylum, where his family had confined him, and went abroad upon a whale-ship; but meeting with an accident, he underwent the process of trepanning and came home more crazy than before.  At one time he attempted to drown his mother, in furtherance of some strange experiment; but it was thought at the date of his death that he was recovering his wits.  Among his delusions was a strange one—­that he had been made viceroy over all the fishes.  His body has not been recovered.”