And, after all, where will you go to
better yourself? for the most that can be said is, you have got a
critter with a thousand virtues and but one vice.'
"'Oh, get out!' said he, 'and let me alone.' And he walked off, and
looked as sheepish as you please."
"'Oh dear!" said the doctor; "oh dear." And he placed his hands on his
ribs, and walked round the room in a bent position, like a man
affected with colic, and laughed as if he was hysterical, saying, "Oh
dear! Oh, Mr Slick, that's a capital story. Oh, you would make a new
man of me soon, I am sure you would, if I was any time with you. I
haven't laughed before that way for many a long day. Oh, it does me
good. There is nothing like fun, is there? I haven't any myself, but I
do like it in others. Oh, we need it. We need all the counterweights
we can muster to balance the sad relations of life. God has made sunny
spots in the heart; why should we exclude the light from them?"
"Stick a pin in that, Doctor," says I, "for it's worth rememberin' as
a wise saw."
He then took up his wallet, and retired to his room to change his
clothes, saying to himself, in an under-tone: "Stick a pin in it. What
a queer phrase; and yet it's expressive, too. It's the way I preserve
my insects."
The foregoing conversation had scarcely terminated, when Peter's
daughters commenced their preparations for the evening meal.
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