CHAPTER XI
Dr. Reasono was quite as reasonable, in the personal embellishments of his lyceum, as any public lecturer I remember to have seen, who was required to execute his functions in the presence of ladies. If I say that his coat had been brushed, his tail newly curled, and that his air was a little more than usually “solemnized,” as Captain Poke described it in a decent whisper, I believe all will be said that is either necessary or true. He placed himself behind a foot-stool, which served as a table, smoothed its covering a little with his paws, and at once proceeded to business. It may be well to add that he lectured without notes, and, as the subject did not immediately call for experiments, without any apparatus.
Waving his tail towards the different parts of the room in which h
