"Don't!"

"That is like advising a famishing man not to eat his last morsel of
food. I have a presentiment it will all end there. I never had a
presentiment before."

"I had a presentiment once," said Flemming impressively. "I had a
presentiment that a certain number--it was number twenty-seven--would
draw the prize in a certain lottery. I went to the office, and number
twenty-seven was one of the two numbers unsold! I bought it as quick as
lightning, I dreamed of number twenty-seven three successive nights, and
the next day it drew a blank."

"That has the ring of the old Flemming!" cried Lynde, with an unforced
laugh. "I am glad that I have not succeeded in turning all your joyous
gold into lead. I'm not always such dull company as I have been to-
night, with my moods and my presentiments. I owe them partly, perhaps,
to not seeing Miss Denham to-day, the aunt having a headache."

"You were not in a rollicking humor when I picked you up."

"I had been cruising about town all the morning alone, making assaults
on the Musee Fol, the Botanic Garden, and the Jewish Synagogue. In the
afternoon I had wrecked myself on Rousseau's Island, where I sat on a
bench staring at Pradier's poor statue of Jean Jacques until I fancied
that the ugly bronze cannibal was making mouths at me. When the aunt has
a headache, _I_ suffer. Flemming, you must see Miss Denham, if only for
a moment."