"He certainly is. What else did you take him for?"
"I took him for a crazy man," replied Sam bluntly.
"A crazy man! Sam, I am surprised at you!"
"Well, now, Mr. Chamberlain, if you had been in our boat and had heard him talk when we pulled him out of the water, you would have thought so yourself, if you had been a stranger to him."
With this introduction Sam went on to repeat the speech the professor had made while he was lying on the bottom of Oscar's skiff. He had paid particular attention to it, and could recall it word for word.
"That is just like him," said Mr. Chamberlain. "If he were lecturing a class in this room to-night, and the house should catch fire, he wouldn't leave off until the smoke or flames drove him out. He becomes so completely absorbed in his subject that he doesn't seem to hear or see anything; and I have known mischievous students to steal out of the class-room, one after another, until there were not more than three or four left, and he never missed them. If I had not called his attention to the fact that he had Sam's cap on his head, he would have worn it to Yarmouth when he went away this afternoon. Sam, you will find the article in question on the hat-rack, when you go home."
"I'd like to ask one question, before I forget it," said Oscar. "Is it possible that there are men who, by looking at a single bone, can give you the name of the beast or bird to which that bone belongs? Mr. Potter told me to-day that some of his students once brought him a bone they had found in the woods, and which they supposed to be the bone of a mastodon; but it proved to be the bone of an ox."
Mr. Chamberlain leaned his head against the back of his chair, looked up at the ceiling, and laughed until his eyes were filled with tears.
"I wonder if the professor still remembers that little incident?" said he. "If my memory serves me, I used to be pretty well acquainted with that same student. He knew very well that the bone did not belong to a mastodon, but he thought he would test the old gentleman's knowledge. It is hardly necessary to say that he was entirely satisfied with the result of the experiment, and had the laugh turned on him completely by the other students who were in the plot."
There was something in Mr. Chamberlain's tone that made the two boys smile at each other. They believed that if the principal had given the name of that student, he would have given one that sounded very much like his own name.