"Oh, by no manner of means, major; | I was only thinking how fortunate you have been in your rapid promotion!' "Rapid promotion, my lord! I observe too, that your lordship has been pleased to call me major: why, my lord, 1 am only a cadet.' "Indeed! by your dress, my dear sir, I considered you to be a field officer.' "Why, my lord, I was informed that I ought not to present myself before your lordship in colored clothes, and having no uniform of my own made, Major Scarp kindly offered me his.' Here his lordship turned aside, apparently to indulge in a little fit of sudden coughing, but really to prevent his laughing outright. He then again addressed our griff. "Is there anything, Mr. Peters, in which it is in my power to serve you?' "I have a small favor to submit to your lordship, "What is it, Mr. Peters?' "That your lordship would kindly appoint me Resident at Lucknow, that situation being, I am informed, vacant.' "His lordship here gave a look and gesture of most unfeigned astonishment, and his eye, resting for a moment on the youth, to see if he was in possession of his right senses or not, at length was lighted up with a slightly sarcastic smile, as he said -'Why really, Mr. Peters, I am not quite prepared for this request, I must confess. But will not any thing else suit you? What say you to getting into council at once? Mr.- is now going out, and if I am not mistaken you are as well fitted for the one situation as the other!' "I am much obliged to your lordship, but I prefer what I have said; besides, my lord, I believe I can claim it under the usual regulation.' 666 'The usual!' 'Yes, my lord, said our griff, who deemed that he had now clenched the peer, 'yes, my lord, No. 542 of the Sudder Dewanny and Nizamut Adawlut.' "His lordship was now fairly overpowered, and laughed outright, until the tears rolled down his cheeks. Our griff was much disconcerted at first, but he rallied, and, according to the instructions he had previously received, proceeded. 'If your lordship should not deem it proper to grant this my request, perhaps you will do me the favor to appoint me to the Rhinoceros Corps?' "The Rhinoceros Corps! Mr. Peters. Perhaps you mean the Dromedary Corps!' "No, my lord, I was told the Rhinoceros Corps.' "Well, well, Mr. Peters, we shall not dispute about the point, but pray oblige me by saying where you picked up your extraordinarily correct information about the Nizamut Adawlut regulation and the Rhinoceros Corps?' "From Captain Radcliffe and Major Scarp, my lord.' 666 Ah, my young friend,' said his lordship, rising, Major Scarp and Captain Radcliffe are great wags; but as they ap pear to be old acquaintances of yours, and they dine with me to-morrow evening, perhaps, Mr. Peters, you will give us the pleasure of your company at half-pasto'clock?' "Our griff respectfully accepted the invitation, but in taking leave of his lordship, contented himself with a low bow, having some misgivings respecting the excess of ceremonial with which he had graced his entrée into the great man's presence." DOING HER PART. AUNT PHOEBE lived and flourished about the time our grandmothers were young. She had her idiosyncrasies like the rest of us. She filled the situation of housekeeper, cook, and maid of all work for the magnificent sum of seventy-five cents per week. Ethan Sheppard had the name of being a near man-it was said of him, while keeping store in Tattletown, that he bit a nail in two, because the whole of it would more than make the scales balance. He seemed to be afraid that, "Satan would find some mischief still" for Aunt Phoebe if her hands were idle, so it was his practice to take himself and men off to work without leaving enough wood to cook the dinner; of course Aunty was expected to have all things ready at noon. So she added wood chopping to the rest of her accomplishments-till it entered her head that she was being imposed upon, then, like a true American, she resisted. And Ethan Sheppard was informed, to his great astonishment, that it was not a woman's place to provide the fuel, and that hereafter he would have to see to it. bed." Nevertheless, he went the next | If any ask for him, it shall be said, day to his work as usual, and left nothing" Hobson has supp'd and 's newly gone to for the fire. At half-past nine Phoebe swung on the dinner-pot, and put into it the pork, cabbage, and potatoes. twelve o'clock she took them out and At II. placed them on the table, and called the Here lieth one, who did most truly prove men in to dinner. Imagine the faces of those hungry laborers as they took in the state of affairs. "What does this mean?" roared out old Ethan. "You know as well as I do," retorted Phobe. "I put the dinner on in plenty of time; the pork's been in the pot since half-past nine, it was on in plenty of time, plenty of time." It is needless to state that next day there was wood enough prepared to do the cooking, and Aunt Phoebe was not the one who cut it. OLD HOBSON.1 I. HERE lies old Hobson; Death has broke his girt, And here, alas! hath laid him in the dirt; Or else the ways being foul, twenty to one, He's here stuck in a slough, and overthrown. 'Twas such a shifter, that, if the truth were known, Death was half glad when he had got him down ; For he had any time these ten years full, Dodged with him betwixt Cambridge and The Bull, And surely Death could never have prevail'd, Had not his weekly course of carriage fail'd; But lately finding him so long at home, And thinking now his journey's end was come, And that he had ta'en up his latest inn, Pull'd off his boots, and took away the light: 1 On the University carrier, who sickened in the time of his holiday being forbid to go to London, by reason of the plague. It was he who established "Hob son's Choice." That he could never die while he could HOW PROFESSOR PEPSINE LEC TURED THE GHOST. he danced a cavalier seul as he put his Gibus on the hall-table, and pirouetted as he took off his grey opera wrapper and shawl handkerchief, and lighted his moderator lamp at the flame of the expiring night-light. The professor was as brave as most men, but he was that night, it must be confessed, a little nervous. It was, at all events, owing to this slight nervous derangement, I suppose, that the professor as he lighted his lamp, went down the two steps that led to the kitchen stairs, and peered inquisitively and suspiciously into the empty darkness. But, good soul! there was nothing to see there save one blackbeetle on the wall, and nothing to hear but the watchful drudging tick of the imprisoned kitchen clock below. The bells were all up at the shutters, and the doormats were duly removed. Trusty Mrs. Dawson had forgotten nothing. "Pooh! what a fool I am!" thought the professor, as he turned the key of his laboratory door, opening out of the hall to the right, and stepped in. Everything was snug and trim, the stove was ruddy, THE little French clock in the mottled walnut-wood case that stood on the mantel-piece of the professor's laboratory, No. 90, Great Decoram Street, had just chimed out midnight in a silvery and musical way, when the professor opened his front door, with a latch-key, and burglariously entered his own house on his early return from an evening party. Now, the professor was a popular lecturer on Food, Electricity, and other kindred subjects; and being, moreover, a jovial, fat, clever little man, was rather an acquisition at De Beauvoir Town, or any other parties; for he sang a little, played a little, danced a little, flirted a little, and made a fool of himself a little, yet was by no means a bore; but, on the contrary, a decidedly useful old bachelor, and would waltz with ugly girls, chat with talkative old fogies, and take gorgeous dowagers down to the supper-room. And as the professor did not care about being the gas-lamps were just alight, and that joked at, but, on the contrary, rather was all; their little blue jets hoarding up liked it; and, when smiled at, laughed, the flame with due regard to the quarterly and twinkled, and beamed through his gas bill. How clear and bright the spiritsilvery spectacles, like a merry old glow- lamp looked; how crystalline were the worm, every one forgot his learning and glass bowls; how ready to go through fire celebrity, and liked the professor heartily. and water, the rough crucibles; how red On the night in question the professor the vermilioned horse-shoes of big magwas in high spirits, and with some reason. nets! In the exhilaration of those afterFirstly, he had made two jokes that had supper moments the professor felt quite a set the supper-table in a roar, and had boy again, and the old boyish delight at made the jellies shake as if they felt the the sight of the chemical apparatus came cold. Secondly, he had waltzed twice over him with its old power. "Of what with pretty Fanny Ledger, and had re-use was it to go to bed? He was sure not ceived a smile that gave hopes of more to get to sleep after that strong coffee. intimate relationship being established Why might he not sit up for an hour and some day between the houses of Ledger work?" and Pepsine. Thirdly, a great thought had struck him, as he walked briskly and chirpily home, for his celebrated "Treatise on the Merrythought of the Dodo," which was to be read at the Royal Society on the ensuing Wednesday. I do not wish to say that the professor had taken champagne with more people that night than he ought, at Mrs. FitzJones's great annual party-though even that would only tend to show the largeness of the excellent man's benevolencebut still I must concede that somehow or other he was abnormally exhilarated, for the "Work." But here a difficulty presented itself. What kind of work should Professor Pepsine select? There wasn't time to go into "the Dodo's Merrythought," and it wanted daylight to examine capillary circulation of the tadpole's tail." But the professor had a will of his own ; he decided in a moment; the struggle was over; he would-yes, that was it-pursue his researches on "the gastric juice and the human digestion apparatus. "What's that noise? Oh, only the policeman trying the front door to see if it is properly bolted." The professor sits down at his table, which is on the door side of the stove, turns up the gas (up it flies like a willing spirit), and sits down to work for an hour at his lecture on the gastric juice. But first he goes (I should mention) to a side-table at the farthest end of the room beyond the stove, to see that that mischievous girl of Mrs. Dawson's hasn't been touching the thermoelectrical instruments. No, the wires are right. But I think she has been moving the skeleton of the Polish soldier that the doctor keeps for his anatomical lectures, else why is one of the skeleton's legs thrust out before the other, as if our bony friend with the vacant eyes, and the Russian bullet in his skull, had been promenading the laboratory in his master's absence? With a "tut-tut" of impatience the doctor puts the skeleton into its right place in the corner, and makes as he does it quite a castanet clatter with the loose leg-bones; at last it is right, hanging by the usual ring, safe on its gibbet-like frame, dry, brown, and ghastly as ever. and perhaps a small proportion of them have turned to lactic, or milk acid." "I shall have a headache to-morrow," said the professor's stomachic conscience, quite indifferent to the lecture on the gastric juice. "4. The vegetable matters have been divided and made pulpy." Here the professor lighted a cheroot. "The albuminous matters have been macerated (how the gas flickers!)—the whole has become a pulp." "Excellent!" said the good little man, rubbing his plump little hands-"excellently condensed, though I say it. Such should popular science be, and would that such it were! I shall then perform my extraordinary and expensive experiments of artificial digestion. Taking aHalloa! what's that noise? I'm rather nervous to-night-taking, I say, the stomach of a newly-killed sheep, carefully cleaned aud scented, I shall desire my attendant to place into it, bit by bit, an excellent dinner: turtle soup, salmon, salad, a slice of venison, vegetables, beer, wine, salt, catchup, bread, pastry, and finally cheese. I shall then pour in two table-spoonfuls of my artificial gastric juice, and submit the whole to a gentle heat, showing by an electric light which will penetrate the tissues of the bag, the rapid solvency of the whole into one colorless pulp or chyle. This lecture will lead to tremendous discussions in the Now the professor settles down at last seriously to work. He carefully culls the best pen in his quiver and nibs it. He takes off the gutta-percha band that encircles his roll of lecture manuscripts, and he unscrews the top of his inkstand. Ye gods of medicine, be propitious, for the professor has mounted the tripod-I mean he has just seated himself with a plop on his red-morocco-leather-covered library chair. Now, he flattens the paper oratori-papers." cally with the back of his hand, and with a slightly pompous hem! savoring somewhat of the British Institution, and with a slight hiccup, begins to read his preliminary résumé of the net results of stomachic digestion : "1. The food is churned, ground, triturated, macerated, disintegrated, and liquified." Here the professor stopped, and seriously reflected whether those three last oyster patties that followed instead of preceding the liberal helping of Mrs. Fitz-Jones's blanc-mange, were not rather injudicious. 2. The fats, liberated from their cellular envelope, have become oils." "I shall suffer for this to-morrow," thought the gay professor. "3. The sugars have not much altered, for they are crystalline bodies; but the cane-sugars have turned to grape-sugars, And here the professor, pausing to take breath, actually rolled about in his chair, at the images his exhilarated imagination had raised; but he suddenly drew up quite rigid and composed, as an echo of his own laugh seemed to return to him from the bookcase behind the skeleton. Now the professor, though a vain little man, and a trifle of a humbug, had a certain sense of humor, and he was not so wise but that he could laugh at himself. I like him for it, and I think that that merry (perhaps rather champagny) laugh did him great credit. The popular lecturer looked at the clock. It was ten minutes to one. "Stay till two," he said, "and just read short notes that have drawn up for m' Christmas lecture on British and Foreign Wines, their uses and abuses, with special remarks, by request, on South African Port and Betts's Brandy.' Oh that Mrs. Fitz-Jones's champagne! there was something in it. What, four glasses of cham "Here the professor again hiccupped. "But the cold air on February night (after supper-parties) does make one hiccup. What is that noise?" "Let us first consider the bouquet of wines and its causes (that'll do for them). The bouquet or vinous perfume arises from the presence and involvement of a substance called ænanthic ether. (Here I must puzzle them a little; the public like to be puzzled.) Alcohol, you know, ladies and gentlemen, is a hydrate of the oxide of ethyle. Now, if ་་ we putI am not prepared to say how unintelligible the learned professor might not have become, had not a certain strange shuffling stir that he heard, or fancied he heard, at this moment struck his attention. It was a sound like the walking of a very lame man, mixed up with the stir and drag of a moving chain and a sort of bony rattle, not at all pleasant at one o'clock in the morning. All therefore, believe what he saw, but attri- "Diseased state of my retina." Here the Polish ghost rose, and introduced his friend with a wave of the hand as "the Guy's Hospital skeleton." Now, I may as well premise here that I am not myself answerable for the exact truth of what the skeleton said, as the doctor could never make up his mind afterwards whether the skeletons actually spoke, or whether the replies apparently addressed to him by those strange apparitions were not rather replies made by his inner consciousness to his own questions. "Binocular deception," said the doctor, occasioned by temporary vinous affection of the optic nerve-very common after dinner." At this moment, the Polish ghost coughed in the impatient way in which people do who wish to edge a word in. The professor continued in a contemptuous tone, feeling his pulse deliberately as he spoke, and making a note on his blotting pad of its condition "at five minutes to one, Thursday, February 15, 1862." "The blood heated; the nervous system by some subtle cause partly thrown off its balance-brain locally excited in the organs of caution-it's all that infernal champagne of Mrs. Fitz-Jones's-that's it a species of waking nightmare." Here the professor threw himself unconsciously into a lecturing attitude, and struck the table with a heavy ruler. The sound came from the direction of the bookcase beyond the stove, the little door of which, by-the-by, at this moment suddenly flew open with a jerk, as if frightened. The professor could not see very well into the dark corner, for the bright globe of the gas-lamp shaded it from his eyes. When, however, he turned his head slightly on one side, and thus got rid of what (without a bull) might be perhaps called the overshadowing glare, he caught sight of an extraordinary object-visible, materially visible to his optic nerves, and to the eyes which may be called their windows. The ghost, getting rather impatient and There was no doubt about it at all—a little nettled, advanced to the table, and he saw or thought he saw, distinctly, two putting one hand on his hips oratorically, skeletons sitting and warming their shins stretched the other deprecatingly towards in front of the stove door. One must be the professor, whose courage increased his laboratory skeleton, for it had the every minute, the more scientifically heatwell-known black bullet-mark on the left ed he got. temple; but the other was a perfect stranger. The one sat with legs stretched foppishly out, and his long right arm hung over the chair-back; the other cowered over the fire and rubbed his knees, which the fire reflection turned crimson. But the doctor was a brave man, and not a superstitious one, and had in his time done his best to expose the folly of tablerapping, and of the stuffed hands and lazy tongs, and all the rest of it. He did not, "Just one moment," said the ghost, "if I may be permitted by my friend from Guy's." "I have devoted much time to these cases," said the professor (he was one of those men you constantly meet, who have always"devoted much time to whatever subject you are discussing), “and I know all the precedents; they are all classified: there was Dr. Ferriar, and Monsieur Nicolai, the celebrated bookseller of Berlin." |