and Christina devoured these
graciously as tributes paid more particularly to herself, and such as no
other mother would have been at all likely to have won.

In the meantime Theobald and Ernest were with Dr Skinner in his
library--the room where new boys were examined and old ones had up for
rebuke or chastisement. If the walls of that room could speak, what an
amount of blundering and capricious cruelty would they not bear witness
to!

Like all houses, Dr Skinner's had its peculiar smell. In this case the
prevailing odour was one of Russia leather, but along with it there was a
subordinate savour as of a chemist's shop. This came from a small
laboratory in one corner of the room--the possession of which, together
with the free chattery and smattery use of such words as "carbonate,"
"hyposulphite," "phosphate," and "affinity," were enough to convince even
the most sceptical that Dr Skinner had a profound knowledge of chemistry.

I may say in passing that Dr Skinner had dabbled in a great many other
things as well as chemistry. He was a man of many small knowledges, and
each of them dangerous. I remember Alethea Pontifex once said in her
wicked way to me, that Dr Skinner put her in mind of the Bourbon princes
on their return from exile after the battle of Waterloo, only that he was
their exact converse; for whereas they had learned nothing and forgotten
nothing, Dr Skinner had learned everything and forgotten everything. And
this puts me in mind of another of her wicked sayings about Dr Skinner.
She told me one day that he had the harmlessness of the serpent and the
wisdom of the dove.

But to return to Dr Skinner's library; over the chimney-piece there was a
Bishop's half length portrait of Dr Skinner himself, painted by the elder
Pickersgill, whose merit Dr Skinner had been among the first to discern
and foster. There were no other pictures in the library, but in the
dining-room there was a fine collection, which the doctor had got
together with his usual consummate taste. He added to it largely in
later life, and when it came to the hammer at Christie's, as it did not
long since, it was found to comprise many of the latest and most matured
works of Solomon Hart, O'Neil, Charles Landseer, and more of our recent
Academicians than I can at the moment remember. There were thus brought
together and exhibited at one view many works which had attracted
attention at the Academy Exhibitions, and as to whose ultim