er that brought sudden blushes of exasperation
to his face, and often made him ashamed to find himself going over these
sham battles again in much savageness of spirit, when alone with his
books; or, in moments of weakness, casting about for such unworthy
weapons as irony and satire. In the present debate, he had just provoked
a sneer that made his blood leap and his friends laugh, when Doctor
Keene, suddenly rising and beckoning across the street, exclaimed:

"Oh! Agricole! Agricole! _venez ici_; we want you."

A murmur of vexed protest arose from two or three.

"He's coming," said the whittler, who had also beckoned.

"Good evening, Citizen Fusilier," said Doctor Keene. "Citizen Fusilier,
allow me to present my friend, Professor Frowenfeld--yes, you are a
professor--yes, you are. He is one of your sort, Citizen Fusilier, a man
of thorough scientific education. I believe on my soul, sir, he knows
nearly as much as you do!"

The person who confronted the apothecary was a large, heavily built, but
well-molded and vigorous man, of whom one might say that he was adorned
with old age. His brow was dark, and furrowed partly by time and partly
by a persistent, ostentatious frown. His eyes were large, black and
bold, and the gray locks above them curled short and harsh like the
front of a bull. His nose was fine and strong, and if there was any
deficiency in mouth or chin, it was hidden by a beard that swept down
over his broad breast like the beard of a prophet. In his dress, which
was noticeably soiled, the fashions of three decades were hinted at; he
seemed to have donned whatever he thought his friends would most have
liked him to leave off.

"Professor," said the old man, extending something like the paw of a
lion, and giving Frowenfeld plenty of time to become thoroughly awed,
"this is a pleasure as magnificent as unexpected! A scientific man?--in
Louisiana?" He looked around upon the doctors as upon a
graduating class.

"Professor, I am rejoiced!" He paused again, shaking the apothecary's
hand with great ceremony. "I do assure you, sir, I dislike to relinquish
your grasp. Do me the honor to allow me to become your friend! I
congratulate my downtrodden country on the acquisition of such a
citizen! I hope, sir,--at least I might have hoped, had not Louisiana
just passed into the hands of the most clap-trap government in the
universe, notwithstanding it pretends to be a republic,--I might have
hoped that you had co