to explain the exact stuff, or vital compound, of
which the first man and woman in the world were made--calling them Adam
and Eve, out of deference to popular prejudices. I take two more--but
you are standing all this time, Mr. Kerby; and I am talking instead of
sitting for my portrait. Pray take any books you want, anywhere off the
floor, and make a seat of any height you please. Furniture would only be
in my way here, so I don't trouble myself with anything of the kind."

I obediently followed the Professor's directions, and had just heaped
up a pile of grimy quartos, when the old servant entered the room with a
shabby little tray in his hand. In the middle of the tray I saw a crust
of bread and a bit of garlic, encircled by a glass of water, a knife,
salt, pepper, a bottle of vinegar, and a flask of oil.

"With your permission, I am going to breakfast," said Professor Tizzi,
as the tray was set down before him on the part of his great work
relating to the vital compound of Adam and Eve. As he spoke, he took
up the piece of bread, and rubbed the crusty part of it with the bit of
garlic, till it looked as polished as a new dining-table. That done, he
turned the bread, crumb uppermost, and saturated it with oil, added a
few drops of vinegar, sprinkled with pepper and salt, and, with a gleam
of something very like greediness in his bright eyes, took up the knife
to cut himself a first mouthful of the horrible mess that he had just
concocted. "The best of breakfasts," said the Professor, seeing me look
amazed. "Not a cannibal meal of chicken-life in embryo (vulgarly called
an egg); not a dog's gorge of a dead animal's flesh, blood and bones,
warmed with fire (popularly known as a chop); not a breakfast, sir, that
lions, tigers, Caribbees, and costermongers could all partake of alike;
but an innocent, nutritive, simple, vegetable meal; a philosopher's
refection, a breakfast that a prize-fighter would turn from in disgust,
and that a Plato would share with relish."

I have no doubt that he was right, and that I was prejudiced; but as I
saw the first oily, vinegary, garlicky morsel slide noiselessly into his
mouth, I began to feel rather sick. My hands were dirty with moving the
books, and I asked if I could wash them before beginning to work at the
likeness, as a good excuse for getting out of the room, while Professor
Tizzi was unctuously disposing of his simple vegetable meal.

The philosopher looked a little astonished