him that
my mind, being of limited dimensions, found difficulty in accommodating
at one and the same time my bodily members and the Latin language. Even
my "Caesar" caused me less misery at this period than did the problem of
the proper disposal of my hands and feet. Do what I would they were
hopelessly (by some singular freak of nature) in my way. The breeding of
all the Bolingbrokes would have been taxed to its utmost, I believe, to
behave for a single instant as if they did not exist.

Except for the embarrassment of my increasing stature, the years that
followed my introduction to Dr. Theophilus, as he was called, stand out
in my memory as ones of almost unruffled happiness. The two great jars
of calomel and quinine on the mantelpiece became like faces of familiar,
beneficent friends; and the dusty bookcases, with their shining rows of
old English bindings, formed an appropriate background for the flight of
my wildest dreams. To this day those adolescent fancies have never
detached themselves from the little office, the scattered bricks of
which are now lying in the ruined garden between the blighted yew tree
and the uprooted box. I can see them still circling like vague faces
around the green lamp, under which Dr. Theophilus sits, with his brown
and white pointer, Robin, asleep at his feet. Sometimes there was a
saucer of fresh raspberry jam brought in by Mrs. Clay, the widowed
sister; sometimes a basket of winesap apples; and once a year, on the
night before Christmas, a large slice of fruit cake and a very small
tumbler of egg-nog. Always there were the cheery smile, the pleasant
talk, racy with anecdotes, and the wagging tail of Robin, the pointer.

"A good dog, Ben, this little mongrel of yours," the doctor would say,
as he stooped to pat Samuel's head; "but then, all dogs are good dogs.
You remember your Plutarch? Now, here's this Robin of mine. I wouldn't
take five hundred dollars in my hand for him to-night." At this Robin,
the pointer, would lift his big brown eyes, and slip his soft nose into
his master's hand. "I wouldn't take five hundred dollars down for him,"
Dr. Theophilus would repeat with emphasis.

On the nights when our teacher was called out to a patient, as he often
was, George Bolingbroke and I would push back the chairs for a game of
checkers, or step outside into the garden for a wrestling match, in
which I was always the victor. The physical proportions which the doctor
lamented, were, I