102 THE BANK ACCOUNTANT. 



doing, and thinking, and saying since I last saw you? 

 Tell me all. Your letter is the greatest luxury I have 

 enjoyed for I know not how long/ 



The Dr Waldie of whom we heard as a friend of 

 Miller's in Linlithgow, wrote to him after his return to 

 Cromarty, and received a reply. The science, or sham 

 science, of phrenology, was then making much noise in 

 the world, and Hugh was for some time disposed to trust 

 in it. The examination of his own head by a professional 

 phrenologist did not tend to confirm him in his pre- 

 possessions ; and as he had argued with Dr Waldie in 

 favour of phrenology, he hastened to lay before the doctor 

 those grounds on which he was now constrained to ques- 

 tion its pretensions. 



' I think with much complacency of our little dis- 

 cussions on phrenology and geology and all the other 

 ologies, and of the relief which I used to derive from 

 them when well-nigh worn out with the unwonted em- 

 ployments of the desk. You will, I dare say, be disposed 

 to smile when I tell you that I am not half so staunch a 

 phrenologist now as I was six months ago, and be ready 

 to infer that my head did not prove quite so good a one 

 as I had flattered myself it should. Nay now, that is 

 not the case, the head did prove quite as good a one, 

 scarcely inferior in general size to that of Burns, and 

 well developed both in front and atop. I am more dis- 

 posed to quarrel with the science for what it confers 

 upon me than for what it withholds. For instance, few 

 men are so entirely devoid as I am of a musical ear ; it 

 was long ere I learned to distinguish the commonest 

 tunes, and though somewhat partial to a Scotch song, I 

 derive my pleasure chiefly from the words. Besides, 

 and the symptom is, I suspect, no very dubious one, of 

 all musical instruments I relish only the bag-pipe. Judge, 



