"Pooh, brother," said the captain, "we have had enough of the tomb in the
history of poor Nora. The whole story grows out of a grave, and if to a
grave it must return--if, Pisistratus, you must kill somebody--
kill Levy."

"Or the count," said my mother, with unusual truculence. "Or Randal
Leslie," said Squills. "I should like to have a post-mortem cast of his
head,--it would be an instructive study."

Here there was a general confusion of tongues, all present conspiring to
bewilder the unfortunate author with their various and discordant
counsels how to wind up his story and dispose of his characters.

"Silence!" cried Pisistratus, clapping his hands to both ears. "I can no
more alter the fate allotted to each of the personages whom you honour
with your interest than I can change your own; like you, they must go
where events lead there, urged on by their own characters and the
agencies of others. Providence so pervadingly governs the universe,
that you cannot strike it even out of a book. The author may beget a
character, but the moment the character comes into action, it escapes
from his hands,--plays its own part, and fulfils its own inevitable
doom."

"Besides," said Squills, "it is easy to see, from the phrenological
development of the organs in those several heads which Pisistratus has
allowed us to examine, that we have seen no creations of mere fiction,
but living persons, whose true history has set in movement their various
bumps of Amativeness, Constructiveness, Acquisitiveness, Idealty, Wonder,
Comparison, etc. They must act, and they must end, according to the