though he was thus lively and vigorous to behold, spite of his seventy-two years (his exact date at that time) somehow, the incredible seniority of an antediluvian seemed his.  Not the years of the calendar wholly, but also the years of sapience.  His white hairs and mild brow, spoke of the future as well as the past.  He seemed to be seven score years old; that is, three score and ten of prescience added to three score and ten of remembrance, makes just seven score years in all.

But when Israel stepped within the chamber, he lost the complete effect of all this; for the sage’s back, not his face, was turned to him.

So, intent on his errand, hurried and heated with his recent run, our courier entered the room, inadequately impressed, for the time, by either it or its occupant.

“Bon jour, bon jour, monsieur,” said the man of wisdom, in a cheerful voice, but too busy to turn round just then.

“How do you do, Doctor Franklin?” said Israel.

“Ah!  I smell Indian corn,” said the Doctor, turning round quickly on his chair.  “A countryman; sit down, my good sir.  Well, what news?  Special?”

“Wait a minute, sir,” said Israel, stepping across the room towards a chair.

Now there was no carpet on the floor, which was of dark-colored wood, set in lozenges, and slippery with wax, after the usual French style.  As Israel walked this slippery floor, his unaccustomed feet slid about very strangely as if walking on ice, so that he came very near falling.

“’Pears to me you have rather high heels to your boots,” said the grave man of utility, looking sharply down through his spectacles; “don’t you know that it’s both wasting leather and endangering your limbs, to wear such high heels?  I have thought, at my first leisure, to write a little pamphlet against that very abuse.  But pray, what are you doing now?  Do your boots pinch you, my friend, that you lift one foot from the floor that way?”

At this moment, Israel having seated himself, was just putting his right foot across his left knee.

“How foolish,” continued the wise man, “for a rational creature to wear tight boots.  Had nature intended rational creatures should do so, she would have made the foot of solid bone, or perhaps of solid iron, instead of bone, muscle, and flesh,—­But,—­I see.  Hold!”

And springing to his own slippered feet, the venerable sage hurried to the door and shot-to the bolt.  Then drawing the curtain carefully across the window looking out across the court to various windows on the opposite side, bade Israel proceed with his operations.

“I was mistaken this time,” added the Doctor, smiling, as Israel produced his documents from their curious recesses—­“your high heels, instead of being idle vanities, seem to be full of meaning.”

“Pretty full, Doctor,” said Israel, now handing over the papers.  “I had a narrow escape with them just now.”