"What fools there are in the world!" said the voice in emphatic
accents of supreme contempt--"What braying asses!--What earth-
snouting swine! Saw you not yon crowd of whimpering idiots flying
helter-skelter like chaff before the wind, weeping, wailing, and
bemoaning their miserable little sins, scattering dust on their
addled pates, and howling on their gods for mercy,--all forsooth!
because for once in their unobserving lives they behold the river
red instead of green! Ay me! 'tis a thing to laugh at, this crass,
and brutish ignorance of the multitude,--no teaching will ever
cleanse their minds from the cobwebs of vulgar superstition,--and
I, in common with every wise and worthy sage of sound repute and
knowledge, must needs waste all my scientific labors on a
perpetually ungrateful public!"

Turning hastily round Theos confronted the speaker,--a tall, spare
man with a pale, clean-shaven, intellectual face, small, shrewd,
speculative eyes, and very straight, neatly parted locks,--a man
on whose every lineament was expressed a profound belief in
himself, and an equally profound scorn for the opinions of any one
who might possibly presume to disagree with him. He smiled
condescendingly as he met Theos's half-surprised, half-inquiring
look, and saluted him with a gravely pompous air, which however,
was not without a saving touch of that indescribable, easy grace
which seemed to distinguish the manners of all the inhabitants of
Al-Kyris. Theos returned the salutation with equal gravity,
whereupon the new-comer waving his hand majestically, continued:

"You sir, I see, are young, . . and probably you are enrolled among
the advanced students of one or other of our great collegiate