sonal
conversation, while he was himself the greatest humbug of all. Others
habitually humbugged others: he humbugged himself, or tried to do so,
insisting to himself that he was a hard man, an iron man, a brute, a
skeptic, and everything that was ugly and detestable; while in fact he
had the warm heart of an unspoiled child, and a faith in everything
good, that was really part of his being--all combined with the vigor of
the experienced surgeon and the close study of the untiring student. He
used hard words--rough ones, sometimes, and tried to make himself
believe that they were the emanations of a hard disposition; while every
rough word was really made under protest from his nature, and few men on
the whole earth were more ready to do an act of genuine kindness. It is
not for us to say that there was not some intentional affectation of
singularity underlying his manner; for he evidently loved notice if not
notoriety; and other means than the white coat and disarranged trowsers
of the Tribune Philosopher have sometimes been adopted to secure the
same end.

Certainly Dr. LaTurque was not remarkably choice in the style of his
"den," if he _had_ handsomely furnished apartments in the house above,
and if his windows _did_ look out on Fifth Avenue. The ceilings were
low, the walls plain, the furniture was very common, and yet a little
odd, as became the place. The floor was oil-clothed; a table covered
with dark cloth stood in the middle of the room; an old-fashioned
secretary, with books piled on either end, stood against the wall on the
right as the visitor entered, with a globe half hidden behind it; on the
wall opposite hung the print of a muscular Apollo (muscular, because it
was drawn anatomically, with no flesh covering the integuments); on
either end of the mantel stood a small statue; in the centre was an
impudent placard of bronze on japanned tin, announcing that no
complimentary visits could possibly be received in that room, while the
occupant, if there, was ready to falsify the announcement at any moment;
on a small table between the windows, under a glass globe, lay the cast
in plaster of a marvellously handsome male Italian face; two or three
small pictures, commonly framed, hung over secretary and mantel; in the
corner between the mantel and the window stood a stuffed eagle on a low
table covered with the suggestive appliances of a fractured leg; and
just behind it, on a bit of rug, nestled a disabled pigeo