“Oh, come! that’s too much!” cried my mother, scandalized and shocked.
“Well, madame, perhaps I exaggerate a little, but it is in order that you may understand me better,” and the doctor proceeded to tell us many extraordinary things which I did not in the least understand, and which made my mother very indignant and my father discontented. He went on laying down the law, without attending to any remarks or objections made by his listeners; at last he finished up a long confused rigmarole with the following words:—
“Now, madame, be good enough to look at your husband’s head. If you look, you will see on each side of the head, just above the ear, a large protuberance. This is the bump of combativeness, of courage, or, if you like it better, heroism. Very well, madame, that same bump is to be found on all the old Roman heads. When you next go to Paris, go to the Louvre, and notice the Roman busts and statues there, and you will see I am right. Whoever has that bump, if he was hatched by a chicken, brought up amongst hares, and nourished all his life upon nothing but pap, would yet be a brave man, everywhere, and always. Let who may say the reverse.”
I instinctively put up my hand to my head to feel in the place indicated by the doctor. Alas! in place of a bump I discovered a deep hollow! I felt quite ill! the doctor’s words sounded like a distant and indistinct rumble. I felt the sort of despair that a sick man experiences when, thinking he is recovering, having been buoyed up by the hopeful words of friends, all his hopes are dashed to the ground by some brutal doctor who tells him, without any preparation, that his case is hopeless and he must die.
XIX.
THE BANTAM CEASES TO TROUBLE ME.
I went out of the room as soon as I could do so without being remarked. My mother soon came after me.
“Isn’t Doctor Lombalot a real original?” said she, trying to smile, “but one must not believe all he says, you know. You see, neither your Papa nor I believe him, dear; and he was very wrong and very rude to say those things about you, which could only annoy you. But do not trouble about it, my darling boy.”
I could not say I did not trouble about the doctor’s unkind remarks, for in truth I troubled greatly about them. That shows how careful grown-up people should be in the things they say before children, who cannot as yet distinguish what is false or exaggerated, from what is just and true.