APTER IV.

IN WHICH DOCTOR OX REVEALS HIMSELF AS A PHYSIOLOGIST OF THE FIRST
RANK, AND AS AN AUDACIOUS EXPERIMENTALIST.

Who, then, was this personage, known by the singular name of
Doctor Ox?

An original character for certain, but at the same time a bold
savant, a physiologist, whose works were known and highly
estimated throughout learned Europe, a happy rival of the Davys,
the Daltons, the Bostocks, the Menzies, the Godwins, the
Vierordts--of all those noble minds who have placed physiology
among the highest of modern sciences.

Doctor Ox was a man of medium size and height, aged--: but we
cannot state his age, any more than his nationality. Besides, it
matters little; let it suffice that he was a strange personage,
impetuous and hot-blooded, a regular oddity out of one of
Hoffmann's volumes, and one who contrasted amusingly enough with
the good people of Quiquendone. He had an imperturbable
confidence both in himself and in his doctrines. Always smiling,
walking with head erect and shoulders thrown back in a free and
unconstrained manner, with a steady gaze, large open nostrils, a
vast mouth which inhaled the air in liberal draughts, his
appearance was far from unpleasing. He was full of animation,
well proportioned in all parts of his bodily mechanism, with
quicksilver in his veins, and a most elastic step. He could never
stop still in one place, and relieved himself with impetuous
words and a superabundance of gesticulations.

Was Doctor Ox rich, then, that he should undertake to light a
whole town at his expense? Probably, as he permitted himself to
indulge in such extravagance,--and this is the only answer we can
give to this indiscreet question.

Doctor Ox had arrived at Quiquendone five months before,
accompanied by his assistant, who answered to the name of Gedeon
Ygene; a tall, dried-up, thin man, haughty, but not less
vivacious than his master.

And next, why had Doctor Ox made the proposition to light the
town at his own expense? Why had he, of all the Flemings,
selected the peaceable Quiquendonians, to endow their town with
the benefits of an unheard-of system of lighting? Did he not,
under this pretext, design to make some great physiological
experiment by operating _in anima vili?_ In short, what was this
original personage about to attempt? We know not, as Doctor Ox
had no confidant except his assistant Ygene, who, moreover,
obeyed him blindly.

In appearance, at least, Doctor Ox had a