Then Mrs. —— put in: ‘Yes, the Doctor said, as soon as he heard you were coming up the country, “I’ll give Solomon’s Temple to Miss Eden;” and I said, “I shall send her some flowers and water-cresses;” pray, are you fond of water-cresses?’
‘Now, my dear, don’t talk about water-cresses; you distract Miss Eden and you distract me, and so hold your tongue. I was just going to explain this cube; you see the temple was finished all but one cube, and the masons did not like the look of the stone, they did not understand the magnetic angles, so they gave it a knock and smashed it. Upon which Solomon said, “There! what a precious mess you have made of it; now I shall have to send all the way to Egypt for another."’
Upon which Mr. Y. said, ‘But where do you find that fact, Dr. ——?’
‘My dear sir, just take it for granted; I never advance a fact I cannot prove. I am like the old woman in Westminster Abbey; if you interrupt me, I shall have to go back from George III. all the way to Edward the Confessor.’
That silenced us all. You never saw such a thing as Solomon’s Temple; not nearly so pretty as the bridges we used to build of those bricks.
Mrs. —— went fidgetting about with some bottles all the time, and began, ‘Now, Doctor, show your method of instantaneous communication between London and Edinburgh.’
‘Don’t bore me, my dear, I have not time to prepare it.’
‘There now, Doctor! I knew you would say that, so I have prepared it; there it all is, bottles, wire, galvanic wheels and all. Now, Miss Eden, is not he much the cleverest man you ever saw?’ So then he showed us that experiment, and a great many of his galvanic tricks were very amusing, but still he is so eccentric that I think it is a great shame he should be the only doctor of a large station. A lady sent for him to see her child in a fit, and he told her he would not give it any medicine on any account; ‘it was possessed by the devil—a very curious case indeed.’
He sent me a bit of the Gwalior North Pole in the evening, which was such a weight I thought I should have to hire a coolie to carry it, and I wanted the servants to bury it, but luckily C. was longing for one of these magnetic stones, and took it. To-day I have had a letter from him, with fruit and flowers which Mrs. —— sent fifteen miles, and a jonquil in a blue glass, English and good, and a postscript to say that, though Solomon’s Temple would build itself almost without any help, still, if I found any difficulty I was to write to him. I am quite sure I shall never find the slightest difficulty in it—it is all carefully deposited at the bottom of a camel trunk.