However, anybody, I fancy, is at liberty to speculate upon the fate of
the late Professor Smawl and William Spike, and upon the mules and the
gentle dingue. Personally, I am convinced that the suggestive
silhouettes I saw on that ghastly curtain of fog were cast by
beatified beings in some earthly paradise--a mirage of bliss of which
we caught but the colorless shadow-shapes floating 'twixt sea and
sky.

At all events, neither Professor Smawl nor her William Spike ever
returned; no exploring expedition has found a trace of mule or lady,
of William or the dingue. The new expedition to be organized by
Barnard College may penetrate still farther. I suppose that, when the
time comes, I shall be expected to volunteer. But Professor Van
Twiller is married, and William and Professor Smawl ought to be, and
altogether, considering the mammoth and that gigantic and splendid
apparition that bent from the zenith to the ocean and sent a
tidal-wave rolling from the palm of one white hand--I say, taking all
these various matters under consideration, I think I shall decide to
remain in New York and continue writing for the scientific
periodicals. Besides, the mortifying experience at the Paris
Exposition has dampened even my perennially youthful enthusiasm. And
as for the late expedition to Florida, Heaven knows I am ready to
repeat it--nay, I am already forming a plan for the rescue--but though
I am prepared to encounter any danger for the sake of my beloved
superior, Professor Farrago, I do not feel inclined to commit
indiscretions in order to pry into secrets which, as I regard it,
concern Professor Smawl and William Spike alone.

But all this is, in a measure, premature. What I now have to relate is
the recital of an eye-witness to that most astonishing scandal which