56 - THE PHRENOLOGIST. 



" And I hope your discoveries have amply rewarded you for the 

 trouble/' remarked his companion, composing his face to serious- 

 ness. 



" Truly they have, beyond my most sanguine expectations. I 

 have detected an organ in the feline species which hath escaped all 

 previous studiers of craniology I mean the organ of reflectiveness." 



He was about to take up one of the cats, for the purpose of point- 

 ing out this organ, when she unceremoniously launched forth a paw, 

 and left deep marks of her indignation on the scientific man's cheek 

 sinister. 



" That is odd," exclaimed he, with the utmost composure and most 

 imperturbable gravity, "very odd. I do not recollect to have seen 

 it, but it must be there." And in defiance of the cat's evident reluc- 

 tance, he took her up, seated himself in one of the arm chairs, con- 

 fined his victim in a sort of wooden cage, so contrived as to leave only 

 the head at liberty, and patiently began a scrutiny. 



Long and carefully did Ernest Kopfstirn search. At last he tri- 

 umphantly called out, " Well, I may exclaim with the heathen of old, 

 ( Eureka ! I have found it !' Look here observe this slight promi- 

 nence. It is, though very faintly developed, a sufficient indication 

 that this specimen hath a pugnacious propensity." 



" I was quite convinced of that before," remarked the stranger. 



"Thus ever judge the ignorant!" exclaimed Kopfstirn. "/ know 

 it hath, not because I see the effect, but because I see the cause." 



The cat now liberated, screaming with rage and pain, forthwith 

 dashed through a pane of the study window, followed by the pug 

 and the other cat, while the doctor, fully satisfied with his investi- 

 gation, without taking further notice of the malcontents, said, as he 

 took an almost shapeless mass from one of the shelves, " This is the 

 greatest rarity in my whole collection. It is invaluable. I pur- 

 chased it from an indigent man, who dwells at Knaresborough, and 

 who found it embedded in a calcareous substance. After having be- 

 stowed the proper consideration due to such an important subject, no 

 doubt remains on my mind but it is the skull of some antideluvian 

 animal, genus not known. It is therefore valuable on that account. 

 But what is the most remarkable you see this organ ? Well, Sir 

 this organ denotes, that the specimen belongs to conscientious irra- 

 tionality! You may smile, Sir, but it is evidently a skull ; evidently 

 not human. It consequently follows, that it must have appertained 

 to the animal creation j and the organ, I have pointed out, is indica- 

 tive of conscientiousness a contradiction not easily reconciled, I grant. 

 I am, however, commencing a treatise on the subject, which must 

 carry conviction to the mind of the most hardened sceptic." 



Reader ! the treatise already extended to six hundred folio pages, 

 closely written ! 



' My dear Sir," said the stranger, who had been attentively exa- 

 mining the specimen of conscientious irrationality, " this is no more a 

 skull than a windmill!" and, before the horror-stricken phrenologist 

 had time to exclaim against this heresy, he continued, " this iden- 

 tical specimen was offered me last summer at Knaresborough as a 

 specimen of the petrifying spring, and is nothing more than part of 

 a duck's egg !" The indignation and secret dismay which the doctor 



