muttons, and fish live on vegetables and animals? don’t these vegetables and animals live on other organic matters? Eat and be eaten is one law: live and let live is another.”
Gerunds remained thoughtful; then he screwed up one side of his face into frightful contortions, as with the eye of the other he resumed his observations of the Vorticella. I was called away by a visitor to whom I didn’t care to show my tadpoles, because to have shown them would have been to forfeit his esteem for ever. He doesn’t think very highly of me as it is, but has a misty idea that I occupy myself with science; and as science is respectable and respected—our Prince Consort and endless bishops patronising the British Association for the Advancement of Science—the misty idea that after all I may not be an idiot, keeps his contempt in abeyance. But were he once to enter my work-room, and see its bottles, its instruments, its preparations, and, above all, the tadpoles, I should never taste his champagne and claret again.
THE ORIGINAL BUN HOUSE.
I have seen pretty faces under various aspects: some peeping innocently from a wild luxuriance of honeysuckle and roses—others glancing with bright intelligence from opera boxes, made glorious by amber satin, and the radiance of chandeliers; and there is something harmonious in both styles of embellishment. When, however, my youthful fancy was just beginning to put forth its tender buds beneath the cold shade of College House, I had rather peculiar views of decorative art, my notion being, that the sphere for sylphs to shine in was one liberally adorned with puffs,—raspberry gaffs, cranberry tarts, and all that tends to sweeten existence embittered by Bonnycastle and Valpy. The serene felicity of my first love is thus strangely associated with the favourable impression which I received from my first jelly. I almost tremble now to think what sacrifices in cash and constitution I made at that refectory which Amelia’s glances filled with mimic sunshine. Warmed by those beams, my consumption of ices was at once rapid and futile. My bosom glowed, despite of all my polar luxuries; and if I suffered from heart-burn (as I often did after a banquet at Crump’s), it was not entirely owing to dyspepsia, but derived its poignancy from a singular but powerful combination of Beauty and Buns.
Amelia was Crump’s niece. Crump—sole proprietor of the Original Bun House at the corner of the Cathedral Close—was a little weazen, one-eyed, floury-faced man, who always wore a night-cap and a sack-apron. We of College House never saw much of him, for his proper place was below, near the oven, from which, like a fish, he came to the surface at intervals, with a block of gingerbread or a tray of pies. Mrs. Crump—Amelia’s aunt—was the most stupendous and remarkable woman I ever saw out of a caravan. She commonly