fourteen days, nine hours, thirty-five minutes, and
seventeen seconds."

At the first sound of this mysterious voice we
all looked up, and perceived standing on the
hearth-rug before the fire by which you sit,
Major, a little closely-knit, middle-aged man,
dressed in black. He had a hooked nose, piercing
black eyes, and a grizzled beard, and his head
was covered with a shock of crisp dark hair.
Our first impulse was to resent the stranger's
interference as an impertinence, and to demand
what business he had in that room in Mrs.
Lirriper's house, sacred to the social meetings of
the Mutual Admiration Society? But we no
sooner set eyes upon him than the impulse was
checked, and we remained for a minute or so
gazing upon the stranger in silence. We saw
at a glance that he was no mere meddling fool.
He was considerably older than any of us there
present, his face beamed with intelligence, his
eyes sparkled with humour, and his whole
expression was that of a man confident of mental
strength and superiority. The look on his face
seemed to imply that he had reckoned us all up
in an instant. So much were we impressed by
the stranger's appearance, that we quite forgot
the queries which had naturally occurred too us
when he interrupted our conversation: Who are
you? Where do you belong to? How did you
come here? It was allowable for a member of
the society to introduce a friend; but none of
us had introduced him, and we were the only
members in the room. None of us had seen
him enter, nor had we been conscious of his
presence until we heard his voice. On
comparing notes afterwards, it was found that the
same thought had flitted across all our minds.
Had he come down the chimney? Or up through
the floor? But at the time, as we saw no
smoke and smelt no brimstone, we dismissed
the suspicion for the more natural explanation
that some member had introduced him, and had
gone away, leaving him there. I was mentally
framing a civil question with the view of
elucidating this point, when the stranger, who spoke
with a foreign accent, again addressed us.

"I trust," he said, " I am not intruding upon
your society; but the subject of your discussion
is one that I have studied deeply, and I was
betrayed into a remark by—by my enthusiasm: I
beg you will pardon me."

He said this so affably, and with so much
dignified politeness of an elderly kind, that we
were all disarmed, and protested, in a body, that
there was no occasion for any apology. And it
followed upon this, in some sort of insensible
way, that the stranger came and took a seat
among us, and spent the evening with us, proving
a match for us in the airy gaiety of our discussions,
and more than a match for us in all kinds
of knowledge. We were all charmed with the
stranger, and he appeared to be highly pleased
with us. When he went away he shook hands
with us with marked cordiality and warmth, and
left us his card. It bore this inscription:

DOCTOR GOLIATH, PH.D.

After this, the doctor regularly frequented our
society, and we took his coming as a matter of
course; being quite content to accept his great
learning and numerous accomplishments as a
certificate of his eligibility for membership in
our fraternity. It was no wonder that we came
to look upon the doctor as a great personage.
His fund of knowledge was inexhaustible. He
seemed to know everything—not generally and
in a superficial manner—but particularly and
minutely. It was not, however, by making a
parade of his knowledge that he gave us this
impression. He let it out incidentally, as
occasion required. If language were the topic,
the doctor, by a few off-hand remarks, made it
plain to us that he was acquainted with almost
every language under the sun. He spoke
English with an accent which partook of the
character of almost every modern tongue. If law
came up, he could discourse of codes and
judgments with the utmost familiarity, citing act,
chapter, and section, as if the whole study of his
life had been law. So with politics, history,
geology, chemistry, mechanics, and even
medicine. Nothing came amiss to Doctor Goliath.
He was an animated Cyclopædia of universal
knowledge. But there was nothing of the pedant
about him. He treated his learning as bagatelle;
he threw off his knowledge as other people throw
off jokes; he was only serious when he mixed
a salad, brewed a bowl of punch, or played a
game of piquet, he was not at all proud of
being able to translate the Ratcatcher's Daughter
into six languages, including Greek and Arabic;
but he believed he was the only man on the face
of the earth who knew the exact proportions of
oil and vinegar requisite for the proper mixture
of a potato-salad. It was impossible to resist
the spell of Doctor Goliath's wonderful character.
He was learned in the highest degree; yet he had
all the reckless jollity of a schoolboy, and could
talk nonsense and make sport of wisdom and
philosophy better than any of us. He took our
society by storm; he became an oracle; we
quoted him as an authority, and spoke of him
as the doctor, as if there were no other doctor
on the face of the earth.

Shortly before the doctor's appearance among
us, we, the members of the Mutual Admiration
Society, had sworn eternal friendship. We had
vowed ever to love each other, ever to believe in
each other, ever to be true and just and kindly
towards each other, and never to be estranged
one from another either by prosperity or
adversity. As a sign and symbol of our brotherhood,
we had agreed to call each other by
familiar and affectionate abbreviations of our
Christian names; and, in pursuance of this
amiable scheme, we had arranged to present
each other with loving cups. As we were a
society of little wealth, except in the matter of
loving kindness and mutual admiration, it was
resolved that the cups should be fashioned of
pewter, of the measure of one quart, and each
with two handles. The order was given, the
loving-cups were, made, and each bore an
inscription in this wise: " To Tom from Sam,