CHAPTER II. 



A CHAPTER OF INTRODUCTIONS — PROFESSOR PALEOZOIC TAMMANY SACHEM — DOCTOR 



PYTHAGORAS GENUINE MUGGS COLON AND SEMI-COLON — SHAM IS DOBBIN 



TENACIOUS GRIPE — BUGS AND PHILOSOPHY — HOW GRIPE BECAME A REPUBLICAN. 



WHEN permission was given me to draw upon 

 the journal of our trip for such material as I 

 might desire, it was stipulated that the camp-names 

 should be adhered to. A company on the plains is 

 no respecter of persons, and titles which might have 

 caused offense before starting were received in good 

 part, and worn gracefully thenceforward. 



Our leader, Professor Paleozoic, ordinarily existed 

 in a sort of transition state between the primary 

 and tertiary formations. He could tell cheese from 

 chalk under the microscope, and show that one was 

 full of the fossil and the other of the living evidences 

 of animal life. A worthy man, vastly more troubled 

 with rocks on the brain than "rocks" in the pocket. 



Learning had once come near making him mad, 

 but from this sad fate he was happily saved by a 

 somewhat Pickwickian blunder. While in Kansas, 

 some years since, he penetrated a remote portion of 

 the wilderness, where, as he was happy in believing, 

 none but the native savage, or, possibly, the prime- 

 val man, could ever have tarried long enough to leave 

 any sign behind. Imagine his astonishment and 



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