"You don't smoke, doctor?"
"I beg your pardon, I do."
"Well, fill any one of these pipes. I was here," he said, spreading his
yellow hand over the open volume. "I was reading the chronicles of
Hertzog when you came."
"Ah, that accounts for the time I had to wait! Of course you stayed to
finish the chapter?" I said, smiling.
He owned it, grinning, and we both laughed together.
"But if I had known it was you," he said, "I should have finished the
chapter another time."
There was a short silence, during which I was observing the very peculiar
physiognomy of this misshapen being--those long deep wrinkles that moated
in his wide mouth, his small eyes with the crow's feet at the outer
corners, that contorted nose, bulbous at its end, and especially that
huge double-storied forehead of his. The whole figure reminded me not a
little of the received pictures of Socrates, and while warming myself and
listening to the crackling of the fire, I went off into contemplations on
the very diversified fortunes of mankind.
"Here is this dwarf," I thought, "an ill-shaped, stunted caricature,
banished into a corner of Nideck, and living just like the cricket that
chirps beneath the hearthstone.
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