but Hum-Drum and Kopy-Keck heard with humility and retired in silence.
Their consultation consisted chiefly in propounding and supporting,
for the thousandth time, each his favourite theories. For the
condition of the princess afforded delightful scope for the discussion
of every question arising from the division of thought--in fact of all
the Metaphysics of the Chinese Empire. But it is only justice to say
that they did not altogether neglect the discussion of the practical
question, _what was to be done_.

"Hum-Drum was a Materialist, and Kopy-Keck was a Spiritualist. The
former was slow and sententious; the latter was quick and flighty; the
latter had generally the first word; the former the last.

"'I assert my former assertion,' began Kopy-Keck, with a plunge.
'There is not a fault in the princess, body or soul; only they are
wrong put together. Listen to me now, Hum-Drum, and I will tell you in
brief what I think. Don't speak. Don't answer me. I won't hear you
till I have done.--At that decisive moment, when souls seek their
appointed habitations, two eager souls met, struck, rebounded, lost
their way, and arrived each at the wrong place. The soul of the
princess was one of those, and she went far astray. She does not
belong by rights to this world at all, but to some other planet,
probably Mercury. Her proclivity to her true sphere destroys all the
natural influence which this orb would otherwise possess over her
corporeal frame. She cares for nothing here. There is no relation
between her and this world.

"'She must therefore be taught, by the sternest compulsion, to
take an interest in the earth as the earth. She must study every
department of its history--its animal history; its vegetable history;