102 NATHANIEL SOUTHGATE SHALER 



men, of places, of Aristotle, of Oken. He was a perfect narra- 

 tor, and on any peg of fact would quickly hang a fascinating 

 discourse. Often when he was at work on wet specimens while 

 I was dealing with fossils, he would come to me with, say, a fish 

 in each hand, that I might search in his pockets for a cigar, cut 

 the tip, put it between his teeth, and light it for him. That 

 would remind him of something, and he would puff and talk 

 until the cigar was burned out, and he would have to be pro- 

 vided with another. 



As soon as Agassiz's collections were removed to the new 

 museum, the old building (now to be known as Zoological Hall) 

 was put on rollers and taken across lots to its second station 

 on Divinity Avenue. It was then given over to what was called 

 the Zoological Club, an association of about a dozen students 

 who were working with him. It was so arranged as to provide 

 bed-rooms, a dining-room, and a room in the centre of the upper 

 story with which the bed-rooms connected, to serve as the 

 meeting-place of the Zoological Club, whiclTwas organized at 

 this time and became the centre of our life. I had the good 

 fortune to receive in the allotment a sleeping-place and a study 

 connected therewith. These, as I did not lack money, were 

 well furnished. As my quarters lay on the path from his house 

 to the Museum, my master got into the habit of coming for a 

 bit of talk, not always on science, perhaps oftenest about peo- 

 ple he had known, about politics, in which he was keenly in- 

 terested, or about his plans and perplexities. It seemed to me, 

 as it did to some of my mates, somewhat curious, for I was the 

 youngest of the lot and a newcomer. I now see that it was 

 probably owing to the fact that in some ways I was then 

 a good deal more of a man in my knowledge of the world 

 than my elders and betters of the association. Something 

 was due to the fact that I had been trained by Escher, an 

 educated fellow countryman of his, and had known some of 

 the "forty-eighters," and profited by the enlargement that 

 acquaintance offered; still more, perhaps, to the fact that I 



