fourth floor bell about six times if s no good your ringing remarked by lights and shadows the book boy when i had discovered that fact for myself mr ain t at home lie ain t he s got a bad cold at this affecting intelligence the three boys burst into shrieks of laughter i understand the boy and his as well as any grown person can but i confess this conduct puzzled me after a few minutes however and many genial i discovered that having a bad cold means in town being in debt while a very bad cold that the sufferer has taken departure from his lodgings without that pecuniary misfortune was other professors of i must confess that i had the same difficulty in obtaining a personal interview in two out of the three next cases the men of science had flitted from their apartments urged perhaps by some irrepressible swelling in their organs of locality perhaps also it is a of their art that they should dwell no lower than the third floor but at all events i never found them below that by of london life mr with whom i had my first interview could scarcely be said to lodge on any floor at all he resided in a back of a third story in a street out of and carried on his undisturbed by any external influences through the medium of a he was struck by my head he said even as he had observed it coming upstairs with its hat on while leaning over the he had remarked to his little boy aged five but remarkably intelligent � with form much developed he assured me though to my eye he looked thin � that the gentleman who was come to see papa was a very remarkable person he was fairly with my characteristics bless my soul sir how i should like to write upon your head dear me said i is it then so very flat at the top no sir you mistake me i mean i should like to give you a written character instead of a mere the difference will be by lights and shadows but is d the value to yourself will be you will thereby learn the system of diet most adapted for your constitution that is most important in your case the instinct that leads to the selection of food i perceive is large really said i mr these remarks are rather painful i am not come here to be upon my eating certainly not sir nor is there any occasion for such a rebuke you will always take care of yourself � that is evident th to die is excessively prominent again is small your personal would never lead you into danger permit me what are you doing sir cried i as the professor produced a machine of mysterious construction and endeavoured to put it over my head i thought of the unhappy victims of messrs and hare whose portraits i had just beheld in a rival establishment and i shrunk by of london backward an unwilling horse from his collar and no there sir � there is there is a proof of the of my art if one were needed but there is nothing to be afraid of with this machine i determine your i lay my finger on the profession that you ought to pursue that is the very thing i came about said i pray proceed if the � the instrument is harmless it me a good deal as a one s foot as he measures it with his rule but nothing worse while the results were sufficiently striking if not satisfactory one of the most remarkable heads sir i ever � the great perhaps alone and who was lie f inquired i with interest for i naturally felt a desire to know the man with the next most wonderful head to that upon my own shoulders by and shadows well sir he might have been anything � anything in the world might that man have been or else is worth nothing he might have been a general or an author or a prime minister or a bishop if he had only tried well but what was he inquired i impatiently well when i knew him he was the champion at the gallery he could tie himself in a true lovers knot upon the stage bless you but besides that he was a most intellectual and benevolent man in later life however he injured his a good deal by the pursuit of his profession his veneration entirely disappeared through standing on his head while even his self esteem which you see slopes off and is partially protected got gradually smaller and was almost even with the surface at the period of his his popularity having died before him the great however had humour in which you are very deficient by of london life am i indeed said i gloomily yes sir you have a natural dislike to and consider those who practise it to be but heavens i what weight you have what calculation what ideas of distance and of space forgive me sir but i am surely addressing a civil engineer well not exactly replied i indeed sir then i am much mistaken you are a little mr well then all i have to say is that if you are not an engineer you ought to be you would build a bridge now that would astonish people if they attempted to cross over any bridge of mine it would i am sure astonish people a good deal but as mr evidently meant astonishment in the sense of admiration i only said t dear me engines now would be very much in your way continued the professor and next to engines you would perform an as well as any man i know by lights and shadows if this were true it is certain that 