n from his pet
flock on the roof, that had come down, with excellent judgment, to be
nursed and tended by the surgeon.

In the midst of this odd assemblage Dr. LaTurque was himself not by any
means the least remarkable object. He was certainly a singular-looking
man, and had a fancy (or pretended to have a fancy) that he was a very
homely one. He was not so, however, to any eye of taste--only striking.
In figure he was tall and rather thin, but the same epithet we have
applied to his arm may be used for the whole man--_wiry_. He seemed
capable of strong nervous effort and of great endurance; and one could
see that something more than fifty years had not diminished the
locomotive will or power. In the too large and too aquiline nose
(literally a beak)--in the iron-gray moustache, imperial, and heavy
brown hair--in the thin cheeks and keen gray eye,--there was a
marvellous reminder of the portraits of Louis Napoleon, and at the same
time another and a stronger suggestion. There is no close observer of
physiognomy but has remarked bird, beast and even reptile reproduced in
the faces of different men--one being a human lion, another a human
bear, a third a human hyena, and still a fourth a human serpent. It
scarcely seemed that it could have been by chance that the gray eagle
stood stuffed in the corner; for the observer just as naturally detected
the eagle in that human face, as he could ever have detected either of
the others named, in different physiognomies, and the dead bird seemed
the _totem_ of the living man.

"Well, battle and murder and sudden death!" said the medical Laurence
Boythorn, when he had forced the young girl down into a seat. "What is
it you want? Who is married or dead, or whom do you intend to kill, or
what is it?"

"Are you sober?" asked the young girl, looking into his eyes very
gravely.

"Why, you impudent demon in petticoats!" said the Doctor, with a great
appearance of indignation. "What do you mean? You know that I am never
otherwise than sober."

"From the effects of liquor, of course not," was the reply. "But your
hot head, like mine, has the capacity of becoming intoxicated sometimes
without any thanks to liquor; and I want to know whether you are cool
and clear, or whether you have been puzzling over some bad case, or
talking with some man with a stupid skull, until your head is all
muddled?"

"Clear as one of the mountain springs that you are some day going with
me to see," said t