"Oi'm comin' to that, Oi'm comin' to it," said the Professor in a very testy tone of voice. "But furst Oi want ye to understand the advantages of havin' a chart. No man can possibly remimber all the things Oi'm goin' to tell ye, and it is quoite essintial ye should have a chart. It will be worth thousands to ye."
Suddenly we saw the reason why he had been so very peremptory in his refusal to let us take notes. He wanted to reduce us to helpless amazement by the flow of his statistics. We were amazed all right, but still firm in our resolve to spend no more than two dollars—it was all we had been able to raise at the office.
The Professor returned to that magnificent head of ours, intimating that it stood out like the rock of Gibraltar from amid the ordinary run of heads that came to him for inspection. But this did not make us so conceited as the reader might imagine. It occurred to us that the average head that comes to a phrenologist may be rather small and thick, possessors of such heads having naturally most reason to wonder what they are fitted for in life.
"You have a big head," said the Professor, "a head quoite large enough for almost anny purpose known to man. And it is a well-shaped head. Some heads that have a big dome have a depression in the top. But you've a ridge on yer skull that ye could balance a lead pencil on. That shows great stren'th of character. But you have one fault. On either soide of that ridge, where the bumps of hope ought to be, you've a hollow. Ye lack confidence in yerself. Y're nervous and diffident. And that is where moy chart would be worth untold wealth to ye. It would show ye how to develop yer hopefulness, and also yer chest—the chest havin' a great deal to do with yer hopefulness. Whoy, with a head loike yours ye could do almost annythin'!"
Instinctively, we sat very erect, feeling that the Professor was about to enter on a list of the splendid careers from which we had only to choose. We were confident that he was about to proclaim the magnificent position we would one day occupy in the literary hall of fame. After what he had said about our peerless set of protuberances, we felt that no forecast could be too rosy. So we straightened up in eager expectation.
"With a head loike yours," said the Professor in his loudest and most impressive tone, "ye'd have no difficulty in takin' a very liberal eddication if ye'd only lay yer moind to it. Ye moight roise to be a bookkeeper or a commercial thraveller. Ye moight even become a lawyer or a doctor or a professional man, if ye only had confidence in yerself. Ye could be a foine piano-player and an iligant parlor singer. Ye could also be a fluent and graceful public speaker. Ye have a good deal of real-estate ability and consid'rable speculatin' capacity and quoite a bit of organizin' talent. Ye could be a furst-rate draughtsman; and ye have a genius for inventin'. In fact, ye could be almost annythin' ye made up yer moind to be—and there ye are!"
Yes, there we were! We could take a "liberal eddication," if only—and all the time a big parchment with a huge red seal lay carefully rolled up in our trunk as evidence of our scholastic attainments! It is the only evidence we possess. We could "roise" to be a book-keeper or a commercial "thraveller"—but never a word to the effect that we might some day be able to write or might ever aspire to journalistic eminence. Not that the Professor was necessarily so far astray at that. He may have been quite right. We admit it humbly. But it was a sad blow to have such a commonplace future outlined for us, after the way he had raised our hopes. And real-estate ability!—it sounded like an attack on our moral character.
"Moreover, ye could become a foine boxer," he continued, "or a beautiful fencer. Ye have such soople movements. Ye could learn to fence in half the toime it takes an ordinary man. And a useful thing it is, too. Suppose ye were attacked on the street, fer instance."
All we would have to do in such a case, we presume, would be to draw our flashing rapier, throw ourself on guard, and "have at you, varlets!" Or perhaps the Professor intended that we should do this with our walking-stick or rolled up umbrella. Somehow the idea did not appeal much to us—spitting a man with your umbrella musses it up so dreadfully.
A bright idea suddenly occurred to us to relieve our deep dejection. Our "marriage adaptions" still remained to be explained. Timidly we broached the subject, for ours is a tender and shrinking nature, and we are not in the habit of speaking out in meeting about our dearest hopes. Our voice sank to a whisper as we asked if he thought we ought to get married.