getting on,--"struck by the magic hand, has emitted a complete and
perfect sound! When did this happen, my Christopher?"

"Which happen, sir?"

"This," he held it out at arms length to admire it,--"this Per-rint."

When I had given him my detailed account of it, he grasped me by the hand
again, and said:

"Dear Christopher, it should be gratifying to you to know that you are an
instrument in the hands of Destiny. Because you _are_."

A passing Something of a melancholy cast put it into my head to shake it,
and to say, "Perhaps we all are."

"I don't mean that," he answered; "I don't take that wide range; I
confine myself to the special case. Observe me well, my Christopher!
Hopeless of getting rid, through any effort of my own, of any of the
manuscripts among my Luggage,--all of which, send them where I would,
were always coming back to me,--it is now some seven years since I left
that Luggage here, on the desperate chance, either that the too, too
faithful manuscripts would come back to me no more, or that some one less
accursed than I might give them to the world. You follow me, my
Christopher?"

"Pretty well, sir." I followed him so far as to judge that he had a weak
head, and that the Orange, the Boiling, and Old Brown combined was
beginning to tell. (The Old Brown, being heady, is best adapted to
seasoned cases.)