To speak frankly, then, I could bring the most astounding proofs
that Monsieur du Miroir is at least a conjurer, if not one of that
unearthly tribe with whom conjurers deal. He has inscrutable
methods of conveying himself from place to place with the rapidity
of the swiftest steamboat or rail-car. Brick walls and oaken doors
and iron bolts are no impediment to his passage. Here in my chamber,
for instance, as the evening deepens into night, I sit alone,--the
key turned and withdrawn from the lock, the keyhole stuffed with
paper to keep out a peevish little blast of wind. Yet, lonely as I
seem, were I to lift one of the lamps and step five paces eastward,
Monsieur du Miroir would be sure to meet me with a lamp also in his
hand; and were I to take the stage-coach to-morrow, without giving
him the least hint of my design, and post onward till the week's
end, at whatever hotel I might find myself I should expect to share
my private apartment with this inevitable Monsieur du Miroir. Or,
out of a mere wayward fantasy, were I to go, by moonlight, and stand
beside the stone Pout of the Shaker Spring at Canterbury, Monsieur
du Miroir would set forth on the same fool's errand, and would not
fail to meet me there. Shall I heighten the reader's wonder? While
writing these latter sentences, I happened to glance towards the
large, round globe of one off the brass andirons, and lo! a
miniature apparition of Monsieur du Miroir, with his face widened
and grotesquely contorted, as if he were making fun of my amazement!
But he has played so many of these jokes that they begin to lose
their effect. Once, presumptuous that he was, he stole into the
heaven of a young lady's eyes; so that, while I gazed and was
dreaming only of herself, I found him also in my dream. Years have
so changed him since that he need never hope to enter those heavenly
orbs again.