ORDER IN DISORDER. 275 



unintelligible. Yet in his own mind he carried the 

 master-key to all this seeming disorder. He always 

 knew what information he had upon any given subject, 

 and in which of his multitudinous note-books to look 

 for it. So that he never wasted any time in reducing 

 this seemingly hopeless chaos of confusion to order and 

 .arrangement. 



So, too, with his own study. To anyone but him- 

 self it presented a scene of utter disorder. A pile of 

 books lay heaped untidily around his chair ; for, as he 

 finished reading, he always put his book down upon the 

 floor beside him, so that a gradually increasing pile 

 surrounded him until he had one of his occasional fits 

 of order. Bones, skins, horns, curiosities of all kinds 

 lay scattered about the floor. His work-table was 

 covered with books, papers, letters, pamphlets, and a 

 perfect infinity of miscellaneous objects, large and small. 

 On another table near by was a second collection, 

 equally varied, and even more extensive. On a third 

 .stood a perfect stack of magazines and periodicals of all 

 kinds, almost entirely consisting of those in which his 

 own articles had appeared. And numbers more stood 

 upon the shelves, numbers more were piled underneath 

 the couch, and numbers more still carefully tied 

 together, and put away in boxes. 



But this was by no means all. In different parts of 

 the room were cages or boxes containing creatures 

 specially under examination. There might be some 

 scorpions in one, half a dozen snails in another, and a 

 hedgehog or a blind-worm in a third, besides a number 

 s 2 



