Pray take any books you want, anywhere off the floor,
and make a seat of any height you please. Furniture would only be
in my way here, so I don't trouble myself with anything of the
kind."
I obediently followed the Professor's directions, and had just
heaped up a pile of grimy quartos, when the old servant entered
the room with a shabby little tray in his hand. In the middle of
the tray I saw a crust of bread and a bit of garlic, encircled by
a glass of water, a knife, salt, pepper, a bottle of vinegar, and
a flask of oil.
"With your permission, I am going to breakfast," said Professor
Tizzi, as the tray was set down before him on the part of his
great work relating to the vital compound of Adam and Eve. As he
spoke, he took up the piece of bread, and rubbed the crusty part
of it with the bit of garlic, till it looked as polished as a new
dining-table. That done, he turned the bread, crumb uppermost,
and saturated it with oil, added a few drops of vinegar,
sprinkled with pepper and salt, and, with a gleam of something
very like greediness in his bright eyes, took up the knife to cut
himself a first mouthful of the horrible mess that he had just
concocted. "The best of breakfasts," said the Professor, seeing
me look amazed. "Not a cannibal meal of chicken-life in embryo
(vulgarly called an egg); not a dog's gorge of a dead animal's
flesh, blood and bones, warmed with fire (popularly known as a
chop); not a breakfast, sir, that lions, tigers, Caribbees, and
costermongers could all partake of alike; but an innocent,
nutritive, simple, vegetable meal; a philosopher's refection, a
breakfast that a prize-fighter would turn from in disgust, and
that a Plato would share with relish.
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