"In Jersey," I replied, hastily; for I could not forget the tall frame, the hollow jaws, the solemn eyes, and the ever-grinning mouth of Feuerteufel, the German doctor, who had made himself so famous in my native village, and who was one of the last persons I remembered to have seen upon that day when I bade farewell to my original body.
"Come," said Tibbikens, looking alarmed at my last words, "you don't pretend to say you were ever out of Virginia in your whole life!"
"Augh—oh!" said I, recollecting myself; "I wonder what I was talking about? What—augh—what is the man's name?"
"Feuerteufel," said Tibbikens.
[CHAPTER IX.]
CONTAINING AN ACCOUNT OF THE WONDERFUL DISCOVERIES OF THE GERMAN DOCTOR.
I was not then mistaken! It was Feuerteufel himself, only he had learned a little more English. This was the first and only one of my original acquaintances whom I had laid eyes on since my departure from New-Jersey, nearly two years before. I felt some interest, therefore, in the man, but it was accompanied with a feeling of dislike, and even apprehension. The truth is, I never liked the German doctor, though why I never could tell. But what was he doing—what could be his object going about the country with petrified legs, arms, and heads? I had scarce asked myself the question before it was answered by the gentleman himself, who had been speaking, though I know not what, all the time I was talking with Tibbikens, and while I was cogitating afterward.
He had worked himself into a fit of eloquence, warming with enthusiasm as he dwelt upon the grandeur and usefulness of his discovery. He made antic gestures with hands, head, and shoulders; he rolled and snapped his eyes in the most extraordinary manner in the world; and as for his mouth, there is no describing the grimaces and contortions which it made over every particularly bright idea or felicitous word.