"What indeed! My dear fellow, if we
have already dwindled from three hundred
feet, to six, can you blame me for dwelling
on the glorious records of the past, rather
than on a coming period when the average
height of man will be—pah! eighteen inches
—with a tendency to further diminution?
And I confess I derive but little comfort
from the reflection that our (by that time)
gigantic remains will, when exhumed
centuries hence, extort the admiration of the
tribe of hop-o'-my-thumbs calling
themselves men, who will come swarming around
to gaze upon our massive frames!"

Longchild puffed out his chest, and
stretched himself generally, as if in full
enjoyment of the posthumous renown on
which he loved to dwell.

The excitement, however, was but
transient. Dick's spirits were evidently
depressed; and, aware that at such times he
preferred to take refuge in his own
reflections, I bade him farewell, reminded, as
I did so, of my promise to visit him at
Gaunthope-the-Towers (a place that had
descended to him in Cornwall), the following
week.

"Then, my dear Hal," he concluded, as,
with a sigh, he pressed my hand: "you,
who are already possessed of one sad grief
of my life, shall learn a second fearful
secret, one which, I am persuaded, will,
independent of our friendship, have a
certain romantic interest for you, and on
which I earnestly desire your counsel."

I have recorded the foregoing conversation,
in order to exhibit my friend astride
of his favourite hobby, the gradual deterioration
of our species from the hale and
healthy giant, considered as cut off
prematurely at seven hundred and fifty years, to
the puny little contrivance now, by the
combined operation of luck, and care, and
skill, kept going for threescore and ten.

Nor was Dick colossal only in his
theories. Everything about him had a
gigantic flavour and twang. He spoke,
when he thought of it, hoarsely and
hugely. He used the most tremendous
words and phrases. He surrounded himself
with weighty and expansive accessories.
His bed might have been the consort
of that of Ware. In the calm waters of
his bath the university match might almost
(at a pinch), have been rowed. He wrote
the smallest note with a quill furnished by
the eagle or the swan. His walking-stick
might have been wielded by the drum-major
of the Guards. His favourite riding-hack
was over seventeen hands in height.

Gaunthope-the-Towers hung, like a
gloomy frown, upon the face of a dense
and lofty wood. It might easily have been
the residence of one of those tremendous
persons who, before the days of their
destroyer, Jack, regarded Cornwall with
peculiar favour.

There was a smaller mansion, Gaunthope
Lodge, lurking in the skirts of the
wood, which, when found, proved to be
somewhat like its gloomy neighbour, minus
the towers, and reminded you of an
ill-favoured dwarf, in attendance on a giant.
Mr. Longchild affected to regard this
appanage as of about the dimensions of a
hencoop, and magnificently left it to the
occupation of his sub-forester.

A carriage drive, about the width of
Regent-street, London, gave convenient
access to Gaunthope-the-Towers, the great
portals of which, were some fifteen feet
high. The hall displayed a complete
museum of truculent weapons: clubs, maces,
two-handed swords, and the like, such as
might have been wielded by Titans.

I was met, at the station, by Mr. Longchild's
mail-phaeton: a machine, or rather,
moving edifice, of alarming size, to which
were yoked two steeds of corresponding
magnitude. The very whip placed in my
hand was of such preposterous length
as to assist the illusion that crept over me,
as we thundered heavily along, of going
on a visit to some friendly giant, and fishing,
as I went, in a black and heaving sea.

Dick was waiting on the steps of his
majestic dwelling, and seemed, good fellow!
heartily glad to see me.

"Nice little things, those!" he remarked,
nodding towards his phaeton, as it veered
slowly round in the direction of the stables.
"Light trap, light horses! But to-morrow
I'll introduce you to something like bone
and substance, worthy of a brighter age."

There was no one but ourselves at dinner.
Longchild, on succeeding to the property,
two years before, had, so far from
cultivating his neighbours, been at some pains
to make it well understood that, as a mere
bird of passage, he did not desire to form
any local connexions whatever.

Nevertheless, the bird of passage must
have found sufficient to interest him, for he
remained glued to his perch in a manner that
awakened considerable general interest, and
a special curiosity as to what on earth
he did with himself. Dick exulted in this.
There was something gloomy, minacious,
gigantic (so to speak), in thus standing
mysteriously aloof. The domestic habits of the