The Professor at the Breakfast Table | Page 6

I fixed my eyes on a certain
divinity-student, with the intention of exchanging a few phrases, and
then forcing my court-card, namely, The great end of being.--I will
thank you for the sugar,--I said.--Man is a dependent creature.
It is a small favor to ask,--said the divinity-student,--and passed the
sugar to me.
--Life is a great bundle of little things,--I said.
The divinity-student smiled, as if that were the concluding epigram of
the sugar question.
You smile,--I said.--Perhaps life seems to you a little bundle of great
things?
The divinity-student started a laugh, but suddenly reined it back with a

pull, as one throws a horse on his haunches.--Life is a great bundle of
great things,--he said.
(NOW, THEN!) The great end of being, after all, is....
Hold on!--said my neighbor, a young fellow whose name seems to be
John, and nothing else,--for that is what they all call him,--hold on! the
Sculpin is go'n' to say somethin'.
Now the Sculpin (Cottus Virginianus) is a little water-beast which
pretends to consider itself a fish, and, under that pretext, hangs about
the piles upon which West-Boston Bridge is built, swallowing the bait
and hook intended for flounders. On being drawn from the water, it
exposes an immense head, a diminutive bony carcass, and a surface so
full of spines, ridges, ruffles, and frills, that the naturalists have not
been able to count them without quarrelling about the number, and that
the colored youth, whose sport they spoil, do not like to touch them,
and especially to tread on them, unless they happen to have shoes on, to
cover the thick white soles of their broad black feet.
When, therefore, I heard the young fellow's exclamation, I looked
round the table with curiosity to see what it meant. At the further end of
it I saw a head, and a--a small portion of a little deformed body,
mounted on a high chair, which brought the occupant up to a fair level
enough for him to get at his food. His whole appearance was so
grotesque, I felt for a minute as if there was a showman behind him
who would pull him down presently and put up Judy, or the hangman,
or the Devil, or some other wooden personage of the famous spectacle.
I contrived to lose the first of his sentence, but what I heard began so:
--by the Frog-Pond, when there were frogs in and the folks used to
come down from the tents on section and Independence days with their
pails to get water to make egg-pop with. Born in Boston; went to
school in Boston as long as the boys would let me.--The little man
groaned, turned, as if to look around, and went on.--Ran away from
school one day to see Phillips hung for killing Denegri with a
logger-head. That was in flip days, when there were always two three
loggerheads in the fire. I'm a Boston boy, I tell you,--born at North End,
and mean to be buried on Copp's Hill, with the good old underground
people,--the Worthylakes, and the rest of 'em. Yes,--up on the old hill,
where they buried Captain Daniel Malcolm in a stone grave, ten feet
deep, to keep him safe from the red-coats, in those old times when the

world was frozen up tight and there was n't but one spot open, and that
was right over Faneuil all,--and black enough it looked, I tell you!
There 's where my bones shall lie, Sir, and rattle away when the big
guns go off at the Navy Yard opposite! You can't make me ashamed of
the old place! Full crooked little streets;--I was born and used to run
round in one of 'em--
--I should think so,--said that young man whom I hear them call
"John,"--softly, not meaning to be heard, nor to be cruel, but thinking in
a half-whisper, evidently.--I should think so; and got kinked up, turnin'
so many corners.--The little man did not hear what was said, but went
on,--
--full of crooked little streets; but I tell you Boston has opened, and
kept open, more turnpikes that lead straight to free thought and free
speech and free deeds than any other city of live men or dead men,--I
don't care how broad their streets are, nor how high their steeples!
--How high is Bosting meet'n'-house?--said a person with black
whiskers and imperial, a velvet waistcoat, a guard-chain rather too
massive, and a diamond pin so very large that the most trusting nature
might confess an inward suggestion,--of course, nothing amounting to a
suspicion. For this is a gentleman from a great city, and sits next to the
landlady's daughter, who evidently believes in him, and is the object of
his especial attention.
How high?--said the little man.--As high as the