For whole days, if not for weeks together, he dealt in nothing but the wildest fiction, and the most extraordinary and grotesque rodomontade.

The consequence was, that no reliance could be placed on anything he said or asserted.

And yet--which appeared to be rather unaccountable in such a character--it could be frequently observed that he was subject to occasional periods of the deepest dejection.

During those painful and gloomy visitations, he avoided all intercourse with his fellow-men, took to wandering through the country--rarely spoke to anybody, whether stranger or acquaintance, but maintained the strictest and most extraordinary silence.

If he passed a house at meal-time he entered, and, without either preface or apology, quietly sat down and joined them.