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There is, even in persons of sound understanding, a curiosity which is generated by a propensity to satire, and kept up by a love of the marvellous, and which is ultimately identified with the interest of truth itself. Impelled by this curiosity, and with a view either to discover and ascertain the truth of chiromancy, or to expose its uncertainty and absurdity, young T. resolved to have his own fortune predicted by Nietzky. Accordingly, he once followed him from the lecture-room to his study, and acquainted him with his wish. Nietzky was accustomed to inquire minutely into the character and circumstances of each of his auditors, and a retentive memory treasured up these particulars, to be employed as occasion might serve. On the other hand, our inquisitive student had attended the lectures of several other professors as well as Nietzky's, but he had never had a private interview with any of them. The novelty of this tête-a-tête, the solemn look of the professor, and still more, the feeling that he was so near the accomplishment of his object, threw him into a sort of partly painful, partly pleasing anxiety, from which he could not immediately recover himself.

Nietzky had already asked and obtained correct answers to several obscure questions, and thus drawn from the youth many a circumstance