The telescope through which he
was fond of watching the heavenly bodies, and the movements of which
had been the source of such odd fancies on my part, is now the property
of a Western College. You smile as you think of my taking it for a
fleshless human figure, when I saw its tube pointing to the sky, and
thought it was an arm under the white drapery thrown over it for
protection. So do I smile _now_; I belong to the numerous class who are
prophets after the fact, and hold my nightmares very cheap by daylight.
I have received many letters of inquiry as to the sound _resembling a
woman's voice_, which occasioned me so many perplexities. Some thought
there was no question that he had a second apartment, in which he had
made an asylum for a deranged female relative. Others were of opinion
that he was, as I once suggested, a "Bluebeard" with patriarchal
tendencies, and I have even been censured for introducing so Oriental
an element into my record of boarding-house experience.
Come in and see me, the Professor, some evening when I have nothing
else to do, and ask me to play you _Tartini's Devil's Sonata_ on that
extraordinary instrument in my possession, well known to amateurs as
one of the master-pieces of _Joseph Guarnerius_.
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