--They tell me I ought to be,--he answered, parrying my question, as I
thought.---I have had a famous chart made out of my cerebral organs,
according to which I ought to have been--something more than a poor
Magister Artaum.
--I thought a shade of regret deepened the lines on his broad,
antique-looking forehead, and I began talking about all the sights I had
seen in the way of monstrosities, of which I had a considerable list, as
you will see when I tell you my weakness in that direction. This, you
understand, Beloved, is private and confidential.
I pay my quarter of a dollar and go into all the side-shows that follow
the caravans and circuses round the country. I have made friends of all
the giants and all the dwarfs. I became acquainted with Monsieur Bihin,
le plus bel homme du monde, and one of the biggest, a great many years
ago, and have kept up my agreeable relations with him ever since. He is
a most interesting giant, with a softness of voice and tenderness of
feeling which I find very engaging. I was on friendly terms with Mr.
Charles Freeman, a very superior giant of American birth, seven feet
four, I think, in height, "double-jointed," of mylodon muscularity, the
same who in a British prize-ring tossed the Tipton Slasher from one side
of the rope to the other, and now lies stretched, poor fellow! in a
mighty grave in the same soil which holds the sacred ashes of Cribb, and
the honored dust of Burke,--not the one "commonly called the sublime,"
but that other Burke to whom Nature had denied the sense of hearing lest
he should be spoiled by listening to the praises of the admiring circles
which looked on his dear-bought triumphs.
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