most as if he were going to break into a dance for joy, he
took the Caucasian skull and the other two, and set the three together
by themselves, away from the rest of the collection. The picture which
they thus made spoke more than all the measurements and statistics which
he now chattered out upon me, reading from his book as I contemplated
the skulls. There was a similarity of shape, a kinship there between
the three, which stared you in the face; but in the contours of vaulted
skull, the projecting jaws, and the great molar teeth--what was to
be seen? Why, in every respect that the African departed from the
Caucasian, he departed in the direction of the ape! Here was zoology
mutely but eloquently telling us why there had blossomed no Confucius,
no Moses, no Napoleon, upon that black stem; why no Iliad, no Parthenon,
no Sistine Madonna, had ever risen from that tropic mud.

The collector touched my sleeve. "Have you now learned someding about
skulls, my friend? Will you invite those Boston philanthropists to stay
home? They will get better results in civilization by giving votes to
monkeys than teaching Henry Wadsworth Longfellow to riggers."

Retaliation rose in me. "Haven't you learned to call them negroes?" I
remarked. But this was lost upon the Teuton. I was tempted to tell him
that I was no philanthropist, and no Bostonian, and that he need not
shout so loud, but my more dignified instincts restrained me. I withdrew
my sleeve from his touch (it was this act of his, I think, that had
most to do with my displeasure), and merely bidding him observe that the
enormous price of the kettle-supporter had been reduced for me by
his exhibition to a bagatelle, I left the shop of the screaming
anatomist--or Afropath, or whatever it may seem most fitting that he
should be called.

I bore the kettle-supporter with me, tied up objectionably in newspaper,
and knotted with ungainly string; and it was this bundle which prevented
my joining the girl behind the counter, and ending by a walk with a
young lady the afternoon that had begun by a walk with two old ones. I
should have liked to make my confession to her. She was evidently out
for the sake of taking the air, and had with her no companion save the
big curly white dog; confession would have been very agreeable; but I
looked again at my ugly newspaper bundle, and turned in a direction that
she was not herself pursuing.

Twice, as I went, I broke into laughter over my interv