The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1896-09-27
FROM THE UNSEEN WORLD. !"

observed enviouS1y, looking round the
oak-panelled room.
| had come UP to spend a day or two with
] Rintoul at Trinity. We had been chums
since our undergraduate days. and he had
1 stayed on, first as fellow and tutor of his
college, and next as university professor
It's pleasant life enough admitted
Rintoui.
The dinner party he had given in my
| honor was over and the last guest had de-
parted. The candles had burnt low in their
sconces, and the corners of the room lay
! in deep shadow. A weird Japanese idol
was dimly visible beside a carven bookcase,
! over which hung magnificent repousse
| brass shield. Rintoul had antiquarian
tastes. and INDUCED them to the uttermost
| The embers glimmered in an ancient Span
| ish brazier, and the andirons, of curiousIy
| twisted steel. represented grotesque heads
| upheld by strangely contorted bodies There
wars an eerie feeling about the place, and
| was not sorry when Rintoul proposed
that we should adjourn to his sanctum,
| which opened out of the larger room.
/ Here al was warmth and brightness; two
! easy chairs were pulled up close to the fire,
and on a writing table behind lay mass
of most disorderly papers, suggestive of
Rintouls morning labors.
My friend installed me in the biggest
| chair. and drew up the spirit stand. He
| lit our pipes, and sat while in sociable
silence. There was meditative look in
Rintoul's eye; he lay back, watching the
| vortex rings of blue smoke vibrating up
| ward by one ere they disappeared in
| a dim haze.
| Its a. groove, all the same" he
| marked suddenly.
I smiled. He had not lost his old habit
| of recurring to the last remark but ten
Life here, | mean he continued. mo
| doubt we're very high-minded and supe-
| rior; but get into 81 cut-and-dried way
| of looking at things; we want shaking up
| with a few city men, to make US practical.
| Shake up a merchant with d professor of
political economy, for instance, and the re-
| suit will be-
| Excepting their nails, and the tips of their
tails
| Instead of two cats. there weren't any,
| L quoted with a laugh. cit won't do, Rim
| tout; the gulf is too wide, though you the
| orists can help us from afar, doubt.
| I'm a practical man.
| This trite conclusion ] threw in to bal
ance the judicious vagueness of my speech,
which dimly felt to be somewhat lacking
| in meaning.
But Rintoul was not listening; he had ap-
| parently gone off quite different tack.
| DO you believe in ghosts?" was his next
4
| observation.
I started. The question chimed in I'M
| pleasantly with the creepy sensations
| which had experienced in the other room
| mo, I don't" 1 responded with unneces-
| sary emphasis. ''That beastly psychical
| society has done no end of harm in popu-
| larizing spooks. You feel a cold shiver
| run down your back and see a shadow on
a WALL and just at that moment occurs
|
| door neighbor. There's something so futile
and senseless about it-like the grammar
sentences in Olendorff.'
THAT kind is irritating. certainly as
| scented Rintoul gravely, but 1 don't see
| that you have proved it to be any the less
a spook Perhaps you have unbounded
| belief in coincidence"
"Oh, bother.' 1 said GROSSLY. 'I haven't
an unbounded belief in anything; let's talk
of something else; I was never good at
argument, and-I don't like ghosts
This was feeble; but Rintoul spared me-
and we did not pursue the subject He
seemed thoughtful and gazed abstractedly
| into the fire.
1 leaned back luxuriously admiring one
| or two etchings that hung the
mantei. Rintoul was a connoisseur in such.
| Suddenly my eye fell a drawing in red
chalk, just opposite my friends chair. 1
| recognized RIntouFs touch-they say he
| might have made a name in the world of
| art had he not chosen to embark on a
| classical career.
| What a magnificent head!' I remarked.
''One doesn't often meet a fellow with d
profile like that: Fancy, | Supposed"
mo, a portrait done from memory, but a
| good likeness, for all that. He was "a pupil
| of mine
Rintoul relapsed into silence and the
smoke rings curled upward as before.
The pictured face was a strangely inter
| esting one. There was haunting sadness
| about it, an indefinable suggestion of prom
Use unfulfilled. L felt sure there was story
| attached to it.
my, friend at last, knocking the ashes out
| of his pipe and laying it upon the table.
| settled myself to listen.
| him., Rintoul began. when L examin-
| ing down there for the locals one summer
| The day was very hot. and I was sitting
with a class that was in for elementary
| chemistry. L had taken some papers with
me to occupy me, but finished them some
| time before the examination was over and
| amused myself by looking round the room
| at the boys. Most of them were pegging
| sense; no doubt. One. however. in the front
| row, was staring blankly ahead; his lips
were moving. and | fancied caught the
| dently forgotten some important point and
| was striving hard to remember it. He was
| the handsomest Lad I had ever seen; broad
| deep-chested. perfectly made, with the
| theWs and sinews of a young Hercules and
head-well you see his face up there.
cat last he gave up in despair, and went
on scribbling until time was up. The others
! gave in their papers and trooped out but
| he fingered behind, and when the last had
gone, burst out breathlessly:
" Please, sir. does calcic chloride efflor-
esce or deliQuesce?'
His impetuosity fairly took my breath
away.
" Think moment I said; If you've
ever experimental, you must have seen
whether it takes in or gives out water
"A cloud settled on his brow as he MUIR
INJURED:
Calcic chloride effioresces,
Sodic Sulphate deliouesces.
Calcic chloride deliquesces.
50 Tt goes either way?' he gasped in hor-
ror: I made a little rhyme to help me re-
member and I couldn't for the life of me
recollect which way it went-I've made a
= Ny dear fellow. it would have been
much less trouble to think than to try to
remember a parrot rhyme-especally one
that acts both ways / suggested.
% That's Just what / can't do he re-
piled, sorrowfully: L can learn a thing by
heart, but l can't thnk-it isn't in me-
HE looked uO at me, q sad. vague,
puzzled expression in his eyes and then
he turned and left the room. The incident
haunted me for day or two; but I was
busy and subsequent events soon put it out
of my head. After all. it was no unusual
thing for schooboy to make a mess of a
chemistry exam.
Rintoul paused and filled his pipe again
T did the same. and we smoked in silence