"
"The dead-cart went through our street to-day."
"You don't tell me! Who is the lucky corpse that is out of his misery?"
"Mr. Lindsay. Our house is shut up, and I am a vagrant."
"A pair of us! For the last month I have performed the Wandering Jew all
by myself. Now I have company. What shall we do to be jolly?"
"_Jolly!_"--with a tone of melancholy surprise.
"When should a man be jolly, if he can't when he's nothing to do? I
am the slave of gold, you understand. If any rich magician rubs his
double-eagles before me, woe is me, if I don't paint! When the magicians
send their eagles on other errands, I am free from their drudgery.
Meanwhile, I live on air, flattened out and packed away, like a Mexican
horned-frog, or a dreaming toad, in a fissure of a preadamite rock."
"I am sorry I haven't your art of making misfortune comfortable."
"Misfortune? My philosophical friend, there isn't any such thing. The
true man is superior to circumstances or accidents. (Some old fellow, I
believe, has said that; somebody always says my good things before me;
but no matter.
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