"Where is your local habitation at present?"
"I am studying phrenology under the learned Professor Boneskull."
"Who is he?"
"A celebrated phrenologist. A few days ago he arrived in your town of Mapleton, and has there rented a house. You will find him flourishing when you go back. The room in which he receives visitors will cause you to open your eyes with wonder and awe."
"Why so?" said Toney.
"When you enter, you will see opposite the door a bust of Socrates, and on its head is perched a prodigious owl. If I am with you, the owl will speak to us and say. 'How do you do, gentlemen?—I am glad to see you.'"
"It must be a parrot," said Seddon.
"No, Mr. Seddon, it is an owl. He never speaks except when I am present, and then he sometimes becomes quite eloquent. There is evidently something supernatural about the bird, and I have suggested to Boneskull that it may be a fairy. He has consulted it on several occasions, and has received most excellent advice."
"No doubt of it," said Toney. "The owl is the bird of wisdom."
"Boneskull has a number of animals, birds, and reptiles stuffed, and arranged around his room in glass cases. To show you how implicitly the learned man relies upon what is uttered by the bird of wisdom, I will relate one or two incidents. One morning I met a young fellow who had a rat which he had skinned and stuffed, and having ingeniously fastened bristles to its tail, was persuading people that it was a squirrel. I told him to take it to Boneskull. When I entered his study, the learned man was examining this curious specimen, and shaking his head rather dubiously. But on my entrance, the owl spoke and assured him it was a genuine squirrel, and of a very rare species; whereupon he purchased it, and it now forms a part of his collection."