Before I was two years old my brain had grown so heavy that my mother was obliged to sew pieces of lead in the soles of my shoes to keep me right end upwards, and yet, in spite of this precaution, I was often found standing upon my head working out difficult mathematical problems by making use of my toes, as the Chinese do their counting machines.
The first thing which my father did upon reaching home was to take me to a phrenologist in order to have a chart made of my head.
The examination lasted a month.
At length, upon the completion of the chart, it was found that I possessed thirty-two distinct bumps.
Well-developed ones, too!
It was, therefore, at once determined to engage thirty-two learned tutors, each tutor to have charge of a separate bump and to do his utmost to enlarge it even if it grew to be a horn.
My father was resolved to leave nothing undone in order to develop my mental powers to the utmost limit. I said nothing either for or against the scheme.
In one short year I had learned all that the thirty-two tutors could teach me, and, what is more, I had taught each one of them fifty things which he had not known before, and which I had learned while traveling in foreign lands with my parents.
One fine morning to the great surprise of my thirty-two tutors I discharged the whole of them.
The elder baron at my suggestion now sent a bill to each tutor for services rendered him by me.