CHAPTER III.

Doctor Dastick’s bone-party was certainly an entertainment of unique description.  A kind old gentleman was its originator, who thought to turn the enthusiasm for lectures, which the Lyceum had developed in Foxden, into a private and pleasant channel.  Possessed with this praiseworthy design, the Doctor, who had given up practice by reason of years and competence, remembered a certain cabinet containing fossils, crystals, fragments of Indian implements, small pieces of the skeletons of their proprietors, vertebrae of extinct animals, besides a great amount of miscellaneous rubbish that refused to come to terms and be classified.  Thus it seemed good to the proprietor of this medical rag-bag to invite the citizens of Foxden to a series of explanatory lectures upon its varied contents.  This would have done well enough, if the Doctor could only have persuaded himself to select his most interesting specimens, and read up upon them, so as to retail a little fluent information after the manner of the lyceum-philosophers.  But, unfortunately, the professional pride of the lecturer induced him to speak without preparation or discrimination upon any osteological article which happened to come to hand:  which fact, perhaps, accounted for the prevalent somnolence of the auditory, concerning which I had been forewarned.

It is barely possible that these midsummer-night diversions of Doctor Dastick were suggested by the fame of evenings which, during the previous winter, several city physicians (men of eminent scientific attainments) had devoted to the instruction of their friends.  And rumor could scarcely have overestimated the privilege of listening to the discursive fireside talk of such accurate observers.  Having vividly realized all that was to be known of their subjects of special investigation, these distinguished gentlemen would steam steadily athwart the light winds of conversation and bring their company to a pleasant haven.  The Foxden ex-practitioner, however, lacking the metropolitan attrition which keeps the intellectual engine in effective polish, drifted vaguely in a sea of fragmentary information; —­occasionally, to be sure, bumping against some encyclopedic argosy, but, for the most part, making very leisurely progress, with much apparent waste in the machinery.  A brief extract from my note-book may furnish an idea of these scientific discourses.

“Now, my friends,” pursues the Doctor, “let us examine another curiosity,”—­here he would take down something that looked like a mottled paving-stone in a very crumbling condition,—­“let us examine it carefully through the glass,”—­here a pause, during which he performed the operation in question.  “What is it?  Is it a fossil turtle?  No,” —­with great deliberation,—­“I should say it was not a fossil turtle.  Is it a mass of twigs taken from the stomach of a mastodon?  No, on the whole, it can’t be a mass of twigs taken from the stomach of a mastodon.  Is it a specimen of the top of Mount Sinai?  No, it is not a specimen of the top of Mount Sinai.  What is it, then? I—­don’t—­know—­ what—­it—­is!”