How far he
had wandered since he had last refreshed himself, or even whether he had
eaten food that day, were matters on which there was no getting
articulate utterance from him. How that wearied, worn little body was to
be refreshed was a difficult problem: soft food disagreed with him; the
hard he could not eat. Suggestions pointed at length to the solution of
that vegetable unguent to which he had given a sort of lustre, and it
might be supposed that there were some fifty cases of acute toothache to
be treated in the house that night. How many drops? Drops! nonsense! If
the wineglasses of the establishment were not beyond the ordinary normal
size, there was no risk,--and so the weary is at rest for a time.
"At early morn, a triumphant cry of '_Eureka!_' calls me to his place of
rest. With his unfailing instinct he has got at the books, and lugged a
considerable heap of them around him. That one which specially claims
his attention--my best-bound quarto--is spread upon a piece of
bedroom-furniture readily at hand, and of sufficient height to let him
pore over it as he lies recumbent on the floor, with only one article of
attire to separate him from the condition in which Archimedes, according
to the popular story, shouted the same triumphant cry.
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