his bookseller, informing him that only seven copies had been sold, and
concluding with a polite request for the balance.

"Seven copies!" he thought. "Seven is a mystical number, and the omen is
good. Let me find the seven purchasers, and they shall be the seven
golden candlesticks with which I shall illuminate the world."

Scythrop had a certain portion of mechanical genius, and constructed
models of cells and recesses, sliding panels and secret passages, which
would have baffled the skill of the Parisian police. In his father's
absence, he smuggled a dumb carpenter into his tower, and gave reality
to one of these models. He foresaw that a great leader of regeneration
would be involved in fearful dilemmas, and determined to adopt all
possible precautions for his own preservation.

In the meantime, he drank Madeira and laid deep schemes for a thorough
repair of the crazy fabric of human nature.


_II.--Marionetta_


Mr. Glowry returned with the loss of his lawsuit, and found Scythrop in
a mood most sympathetically tragic. His friends, whom we have mentioned,
availed themselves of his return to pay him a simultaneous visit, and at
the same time arrived Scythrop's friend and fellow-collegian, the Hon.
Mr. Listless, a young gentleman devoured with a gloomy and
misanthropical _nil curo_.

Mr. and Mrs. Hilary brought with them an orphan niece, Miss Marionetta