morning, he would cry, after many
pinches of snuff: "Boy! go to my domicile
and fetch the leathern satchel that lieth on
the parlour table." Straightway would the
boy addressed start on his errand; for, though
the Doctor's cottage was close by, it oft-times
happened that the boy managed to find
time for the purchase of cakes and apples
—nay, for the spinning of tops and
tossing of leathern balls even, and for unlawful
chivying round the worn old circular stone
steps, surmounted by a stump: all that
remains of the old cross of Accidentium.
Back would the boy come with the famous
leathern satchel gorged with papers. Then
Doctor Pantologos would dip his bony arm
into it and draw forth a handful
of the treatise, and would fall to biting
his pen, and clenching his hands, and
muttering passages concerning the
welfare of the Æolic Digamma, and in a trice he
would be happy; forgetting the din and the
dust, the ruinous schoolroom, his threadbare
coat, the misapplied funds, and his inadequate
revenue—forgetting, even, the existence of
the three great plagues of his life, his sister
Volumnia, his sister Volumnia's children, and
the boy Quandoquidem.

Volumnia was the widow of a Mr. Corry
O'Lanus, an Irishman and an exciseman who
had fallen a victim to his devotion to his
official duties, having lost his life in "a
difficulty" about an illicit still in the county
Tipperary, much whiskey being spilt on the
occasion, and some blood. To whom should the
widowed Volumnia fly for protection and
shelter but to her brother Thoukydides
Pantologos? And Thoukydides Pantologos, whose
general meekness and lamblikeness would
have prompted him to receive the Megatherium
with open arms, and acknowledge the
Plesiosaurus as a brother-in-law had he been
requested so to do, did not only receive, cherish,
aid and abet his sister Volumuia, but likewise
her five orphaned children Elagabalus
James, Commodus William, Marius Frederick,
Drusilla Jane, and Poppæa Caroline.
They had all red hair. They all fought, bit,
scratched, stole and devoured, like fox-cubs.
They tore the Doctor's books; they yelled
hideous choruses to distract him as he
studied; they made savage forays upon
the leathern satchel; they fashioned his
pens into pea-shooters, ate his wafers, and
poured out his ink as libations to the infernal
gods. In a word, they played the very devil
with Doctor Pantologos. And Volumnia,
whose hair was redder than that of her
offspring, and in whose admirable character all
the virtues of her children were combined,
watched over this young troop with motherly
fondness; and very little rest did she let
her brother have night or day if the
bereaved orphans of Mr. O'Lanus wanted new
boots, or socks, or frocks.

Mrs. O'Lanus had no money, no wit, no
beauty, no good qualities to speak of, but she
had a temper. By means of this said temper
she kept the learned Doctor Pantologos in
continual fear and trembling. She raised
storms about his ears, she scolded him from
doors and objurgated him from windows, she
put " ratsbane in his porridge and halters
in his pew " (figuratively of course), she
trumpeted his misdoings all over the village,
and was much condoled with for her sufferings
(a more harmless and inoffensive man than the
doctor did not exist); she spent three fourths
of his small income upon herself and her
red-haired children; yet Thoukydides Pantologos
bore it all with patience, and was willing
to believe that Volumnia was a martyr to
his interests; that she sacrificed her children
to him, and only stayed with him to save him
and his house from utter rack and ruin.

Did I ever mention that a great many years
before this time, Doctor Pantologos took to
himself a wife—a delicate lady who died—
called Formosa, and who dying left a little child
—a girl, called Pulchrior? I think not,—yet it
was so; and at this time this child had grown to
be a brown-haired, rosy-cheeked, buxom little
lass, some fifteen summers old. It pleased
very much Doctor Pantologos to remark that
she was not weak, nor delicate, nor ailing, like
the poor lady—her mother—who died, and
that still she had her mother's eyes, and
hair, and cheery laugh. She was a very merry
good little girl was Pulchrior, and I am sure
don't know what the poor Doctor would
have done without her. Volumuia hated
her, of course. She called her "rubbage,"
a " faggot" and other unclassical names,
which I am ashamed the widow of an O'Lanus
should have so far forgotten herself as to
make use of; poor Pulchrior had to do the
hardest work, and wash and dress the five
red-headed children, who always fought, bit,
scratched, and yelled, during the operation;
she had to run errands for Volumnia, notably
with missives of a tender nature
addressed to Mr. O'Bleak, the squinting
apothecary at the corner (Volumnia adored
Irishmen); she had to bear all Volumnia's
abuse, and all the turmoil of the infants
with the red heads, but she did not repine.
She had a temper, too, had Pulchrior,
and that temper happened to be a very
good one; and the more Volumnia scolded,
and stormed, and abused her, the more
Pulchrior sang and smiled, and (when she
could get into a quiet corner by herself)
danced.

Luckily, indeed, was it for Doctor Pantologos
that Volumnia did not deem it
expedient that her red-headed children, the boys
at least, should receive their education,
as yet, in Accidentium Grammar- School.
The fiery-headed scions of the house
of O'Lanus passed the hours of study in
simple and pastoral recreations, dabbling in
the mud in the verdant ditches, making
dirt-pies, squirting the pellucid waters of the
Dune through syringes at their youthful