"
"Here is a story in prospect," thought I, "if I can only keep his
attention up to the subject."
"He should have figured in my great work, sir," the Professor
went on. "Scarammuccia should have taken his place among the
examples that prove my new theory; but unfortunately he died
before I was born. His mistress gave him, stuffed, as you see
upstairs, to my father to take care of for her, and he has
descended as an heirloom to me. Talking of dogs, Mr. Kerby, I
have ascertained, beyond the possibility of doubt, that the
brachial plexus in people who die of hydrophobia--but stop! I had
better show you how it is--the preparation is upstairs under my
wash-hand stand."
He left his seat as he spoke. In another minute he would have
sent the servant to fetch the "preparation," and I should have
lost the story. At the risk of his taking offense, I begged him
not to move just then, unless he wished me to spoil his likeness.
This alarmed, but fortunately did not irritate him. He returned
to his seat, and I resumed the subject of the stuffed poodle,
asking him boldly to tell me the story with which the dog was
connected. The demand seemed to impress him with no very
favorable opinion of my intellectual tastes; but he complied with
it, and related, not without many a wearisome digression to the
subject of his great work, the narrative which I propose calling
by the name of "The Yellow Mask.
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