And Halicarnassus put up his pipe and betook himself to the house, and
I was glad of it, the abominable bore! to sit there and listen to my
glowing schemes, knowing all the while that they were soap-bubbles.
"Corn and potatoes," indeed! I didn't believe a word of it.
Halicarnassus always had an insane passion for corn and potatoes. Land
represented to him so many bushels of the one or the other. Now corn
and potatoes are very well in their way, but, like every other innocent
indulgence, carried too far, become a vice; and I more than suspected he
had planned the strategy simply to gratify his own weakness. Corn and
potatoes, indeed!

But when Halicarnassus entered the lists against me, he found an
opponent worthy of his steel. A few more such victories would be his
ruin. A grand scheme fired and filled my mind during the silent watches
of the night, and sent me forth in the morning, jubilant with high
resolve. Alexander might weep that he had no more worlds to conquer;
but I would create new. Archimedes might desiderate a place to stand
on before he could bring his lever into play; I would move the world,
self-poised. If Halicarnassus fancied that I was cut up, dispersed, and
annihilated by one disaster, he should weep tears of blood to see me
rise, Phoenix-like, from the ashes of my dead hopes, to a newer and more
glorious life. Here, having exhausted my classics, I took a long sweep
down to modern times, and vowed in my heart never to give up the ship.

Halicarnassus saw that a fell purpose was working in my mind, but a
certain high tragedy in my aspect warned him to silence; so he only
dogged me around the corners of the house, eyed me askance from the
wood-shed, and peeped through the crevices of the demented little barn.
But his vigilance bore no fruit. I but walked moodily "with folded arms
and fixed eyes," or struck out new paths at random, so long as there