‘I’ll bet sixpence you can’t tell me what that is!’ he exclaimed triumphantly.
I owned the soft impeachment.
‘That’s the maxillary gland of a rat.’
‘Dear me!’ I said.
‘Yes. Isn’t it lovely? Here’s another.—Now, just look at that.’ (A queer granular-looking object.) ‘You don’t know what that is?’
‘Give it up,’ I said.
‘That’s a section of the epidermis of the great toe.’
‘Great toe!’ I exclaimed in disgust. ‘What on earth have analysts got to do with great toes?’
‘Oh, nothing particular,’ he said airily. ‘But we like to have as much variety as possible. I should like to have a section of everything, if I could get it.—Here’s another pretty slide; that is the section of a diseased potato; and this one is a bit of a frog’s leg.’
‘Very instructive, I daresay,’ I remarked; ‘but I hope you haven’t made me spend twenty pounds merely to improve your acquaintance with frogs’ legs and diseased potatoes. Mr Scrutin surely doesn’t analyse such things as these?’