"I mean," said Paul, "to express a certain effervescence of manner, as if one were corked against one's will, ending in a sudden pop of the cork and a general overflowing. I invented the word after seeing Miss Pix. She is an odd person; but I shouldn't wish to be so concerned about my neighbors as she appears to be. My philosophy of life," he continued, standing now before the fire, and receiving its entire radiation upon the superficies of his back, "is to extract sunshine from cucumbers. Think of living forty years, like Doctor Chocker, on the husks of the digamma! I am obliged to him for his advice, but I sha'n't follow it. Here are my books and prints; out of doors are people and Nature: I propose to extract sunshine from all these cucumbers. The world was made for us, and not we for the world. When I go to Miss Pix's this evening,—and, by the way, it's 'most time to go,—I presume I shall find one or two ripe cucumbers. Christmas, too, is a capital season for this chemical experiment. I find people are more off their guard, and offer special advantages for a curious observer and experimenter. Here is my room; you see how I live; and when I have no visitor at tea, I wind up my little musical box. You have no idea what a pretty picture I make, sitting in my chair, the tea-table by me, the fire in the grate, and the musical box for a cricket on the hearth"; and Mr. Le Clear laughed good-humoredly.
Nicholas laughed, too. He had been smiling throughout the young philosopher's discourse; but he was conscious of a little feeling of uneasiness, as if he were being subjected to the cucumber-extract process. He had intended at first to deliver the scheme of life which he had adopted, but, on the whole, determined to postpone it. He rose to go, and shook hands with Paul, who wished him all success in finding his aunt; as for himself, he thought he got along better without aunts. The two went down stairs to the door, causing very much the same dispersion of the tribes as before; and Nicholas once more stood in Five-Sisters Court, while Paul Le Clear returned to his charming bower, to be tickled with the recollection of the adventure, and to prepare for Miss Pix's party.
"On the whole, I think I won't disturb Doctor Chocker's mind by clearing it up," said he to himself. "It might, too, bring on a repetition of the fulmination against my paper which the young Judge seemed so to enjoy relating. An innocent youth, certainly! I wonder if he expected me to give him my autobiography."
Nicholas Judge confessed to himself a slight degree of despondency, as he looked at the remaining two houses in the court, since Miss Pix's would have to be counted out, and reflected that his chances of success were dwindling. His recent conversation had left upon his mind, for some reason which he hardly stopped now to explain, a disagreeable impression; and he felt a trifle wearied of this very dubious enterprise. What likelihood was there, if his aunt had lived here a long time past, as he assumed in his calculations, that she would have failed to make herself known in some way to Doctor Chocker? since the vision which he had of this worthy lady was that of a kind-hearted and most neighborly soul. But he reflected that city life must differ greatly from that in the country, even more than he had conceded with all his a priori reasonings; and he decided to draw no hasty inferences, but to proceed in the Baconian method by calling at Number Three. He was rather out of conceit with his strategy of thirst, which had so fallen below the actual modes of effecting an entrance, and now resolved to march boldly up with the irresistible engine of straight-forward inquiry,—as straight-forward, at least, as the circumstances would permit. He knocked at the door. After a little delay, enlivened for him by the interchange of voices within the house, apparently at opposite extremities, a light approached, and the door was opened, disclosing a large and florid-faced man, in his shirt-sleeves, holding a small and sleepy lamp in his hand. Nicholas moved at once upon the enemy's works.
"Will you have the goodness to tell me, Sir, if a lady named Miss Eunice Brown lives here?"—that being his aunt's maiden name, and possibly good on demand thirty years after date. The reply came, after a moment's deliberation, as if the man wished to gain time for an excursion into some unexplored region of the house,—
"Well, Sir, I won't say positively that she doesn't; and yet I can say, that, in one sense of the word, Miss Eunice Brown does not live here. Will you walk in, and we will talk further about it."
Nicholas entered, though somewhat wondering how they were to settle Miss Brown's residence there by the most protracted conversation. The man in shirt-sleeves showed him into a sitting-room, and setting the lamp upon the top of a corner what-not, where it twinkled like a distant star, he gave Nicholas a seat, and took one opposite to him, first shutting the door behind them.
"Will you give me your name, Sir?" said he.
Nicholas hesitated, not quite liking to part with it to one who might misuse it.
"I have no objection," said his companion, in a sonorous voice, "to giving my name to any one that asks it. My name is Soprian Manlius."