“You are too stiff—too unbending,” said the Doctor. “Then, you know very well, that you have nobody in Aberdeen to confirm your extraordinary statement. You say that the whole of this collection is entirely the work of your own hands, and that it is your own exclusive property!”
“Yes! I bought the game birds; and as regards the others, I procured the whole of them myself,—preserved them and cased them, just as you see them.”
“And had you to work for your living all that time?”
“Yes; and for the living of my family too.”
“Then you have a wife and a family?”
“Yes, I have five children.”
“The devil!”
“No, sir, I said children.”
“Ah, yes, I know; I beg your pardon. But do you mean to say that you have maintained your wife and family by working at your trade, all the while that you have been making this collection?”
“Yes.”