“I have a few others at your service, my dear friend. Name any one you would wish to see, and I shall be most happy to produce it.”
“Let me see, then, the head of Copernicus.” I had scarcely spoken the word when he brought out the philosopher, and put him beside Cicero. I named successively Socrates, Thales, Galileo, Confucius, Zoroaster, Tycho Braché, Roger Bacon, and Paracelsus, and straightway they stood upon the table as fresh as if they had just received the last touch of the sculptor’s chisel. I must confess that such a number of large heads emanating from the pockets of the little meagre man in the snuff-coloured surtout and scarlet waistcoat, would have occasioned me incredible wonder, had my stock of astonishment not been exhausted by the previous display of his abilities. I had little more to throw away upon any new subject, and looked upon these fresh exhibitions without experiencing anything beyond a slight surprise.
“And do you,” I demanded, as the last named was brought forth, “always carry those heads about with you?”
“I generally do so for the amusement of my friends,” answered he. “But do not think that my stock is exhausted; I have still a few more that I can show you—for instance, Pythagoras.”
“Pythagoras!” exclaimed I; “no, don’t produce him. He is the last of all the philosophers I would wish to see. The Stoics, the Epicureans, ay, even the Cynics, with Diogenes or Menippus at their head, were sages compared with Pythagoras, the founder of the most preposterous system of philosophy that ever existed.”
“My dear friend,” said the little man, with unusual gravity, “you do not say so?”
“I do say so. Pythagoras was a fool, a madman, an impostor.”
“You don’t speak thus of the divine Pythagoras?” returned he, putting his bust upon the table.
“No, not of the divine Pythagoras, for such a person never existed. I speak of Pythagoras the Samian—him of the golden thigh, the founder of what is called the Pythagorean philosophy.”