know the names of these things, and thou wouldst have as much chance of success wert thou to attempt to tell them what light or sound is as thou wouldst have if thou shouldst try to explain to a savage that there is nothing under the world to hold it up, and yet it doesn't fall. But if thou shouldst lay several pieces of metal in a row and ask one of my people to tell thee what they were, he would try the weight of each and feel its grain carefully, possibly smell them or touch his tongue to them, and then he would make answer: 'That is gold; that is silver; that is copper; that is lead; that is tin; that is iron.'
"But thou wouldst say, 'They all are differently colored; canst not perceive that?'
"'I know not what thou meanest by color,' he would reply. 'But mark me: now I hide them all beneath this silken kerchief, and still by touching them with my finger tips I can tell what metal each one is. If thou canst do it, then art thou as good a man as I.'
"What sayest now, little baron?" asked the learned Barrel Brow, while his face was wreathed in a smile of triumph " dost think thou wouldst be as good a man as this Soodopsy?"
"Nay, indeed I do not, wise Master," wrote I upon my silver tablet " and I thank thee for all thou has told me and taught me, and I ask leave, O Barrel Brow, to come again and converse with thee."
"That thou mayest, little baron," traced the learned Soodopsy upon his silver tablet and then as I turned to leave his chamber he reached quickly after me and touched me with a bent forefinger, which meant return.
"Thy pardon, little baron," he wrote, "but thou art leaving my study without thy faithful Bulger am I not right?"
I was astounded, for indeed he was right, and though without the sense of sight he had seen more than I with two good eyes wide open. There lay Bulger fast asleep on a silken-covered hassock.
