“Why, Sir, the Baron Terroro’s eyes had the box seat, and I strongly suspect you’ve been and sat upon them.”
I looked involuntarily to see whether I had been sitting upon anything except the simple cushion. Truly enough, there was an eye, which I had crushed and flattened.
“Only one,” I said.
“Worse for you, and better for him. The other eye had time to escape, and it will know you again, that’s certain. Well, it’s no business of mine. Of course you’ve no appetite now for dinner? Better pay your fare, Sir. To the Green Hippopotamus and Spectacles, where we put up, it’s ten-and-six.”
“Is there room inside?” I inquired. It was advisable to shrink from observation.
“Yes, Sir. The inside passengers are mostly skeleton. There’s room for three, Sir. Inside, one-pound-one.”
I paid the money, and became an inside passenger.
Professor Essig’s Lectures on Anatomy had so fortified me, that I did not shrink from entering the Skitzton coach. It contained living limbs, loose or attached to skeletons in other respects bare, except that they were clothed with broadcloth garments, cut after the English fashion. One passenger only had a complete face of flesh, he had also one living hand; the other hand I guessed was bony, because it was concealed in a glove obviously padded. By observing the fit of his clothes, I came to a conclusion that this gentleman was stuffed throughout; that all his limbs, except the head and hand, were artificial. Two pair of Legs, in woollen stockings, and a pair of Ears, were in a corner of the coach, and in another corner there were nineteen or twenty Scalps.
I thought it well to look astonished at nothing, and, having pointed in a careless manner to the scalps, asked what might be their destination? The person with the Face and Hand replied to me; and although evidently himself a gentleman, he addressed me with a tone of unconcealed respect.