n
breaking the tenth commandment over almost every article he touched; for
everything was first-rate of its kind.

"You seem to have devoted money, as well as thought, plentifully to the
pursuit."

"I have little else to which to devote either; and more of both than is,
perhaps, safe for me."

"I should hardly complain of a superfluity of thought, if superfluity of
money was the condition of it."

"Pray understand me. I am no Dives; but I have learned to want so
little, that I hardly know how to spend the little which I have."

"I should hardly have called that an unsafe state."

"The penniless Faquir who lives on chance handfuls of rice has his
dangers, as well as the rich Parsee who has his ventures out from
Madagascar to Canton. Yes, I have often envied the schemer, the man of
business, almost the man of pleasure; their many wants at least absorb
them in outward objects, instead of leaving them too easily satisfied,
to sink in upon themselves, and waste away in useless dreams."

"You found out the best cure for that malady when you took up the
microscope and the collecting-box."

"So I fancied once. I took up natural history in India years ago to
drive away thought, as other men might take to opium, or to
brandy-pawnee: but, like them, it has become a passion now and a tyranny;
and I go on hunting, discovering, wondering, craving for more knowledge;
and--_cui bono_? I sometimes ask--"

"Why, this at least, sir; that, without such men as you, who work for
mere love, science would be now fifty years behind her present
standing-point; and we doctors should not know a thousand important facts,
which you have been kind enough to tell us, while we have not time to find
them out for ourselves."

"_Sic vos non vobis_--"

"Yes, you have the work, and we have the pay; which is a very fair
division of labour, considering the world we live in."

"And have you been skilful enough to make science pay you here, in such
an out-of-the-way little world as that of Aberalva must be?"

"She is a good stalking-horse anywhere;" and Tom detailed, with plenty
of humour, the effect of his microscope and his lecture on the drops of
water. But his wit seemed so much lost on Campbell, that he at last
stopped almost short, not quite sure that he had not taken a liberty.

"No; go on, I beg you; and do not fancy that I am not interested and
amused too, because my laughing muscles are a little stiff from want of
use. Perhaps, too,