Three Hours after Marriage - BestLightNovel.com
You’re reading novel Three Hours after Marriage Part 18 online at BestLightNovel.com. Please use the follow button to get notification about the latest chapter next time when you visit BestLightNovel.com. Use F11 button to read novel in full-screen(PC only). Drop by anytime you want to read free – fast – latest novel. It’s great if you could leave a comment, share your opinion about the new chapters, new novel with others on the internet. We’ll do our best to bring you the finest, latest novel everyday. Enjoy
_Poss._ Gentlemen, I affirm I have a greater curiosity than all of them.
I have an entire leaf of Noah's journal aboard the ark, that was hewen out of a porphyry pillar in Palmyra.
[_Fossile opens the case of the mummy._
_Naut._ By the formation of the muscular parts of the visage, I conjecture that this mummy is male.
_Pos._ Male, brother! I am sorry to observe your ignorance of the symetry of a human body. Do but observe the projection of the hip; besides, the bloom upon the face; 'tis a female beyond all contradiction.
_Fos._ Let us have no rash dispute, brothers; but proceed methodically----Behold the vanity of mankind! [_pointing to the mummy._]
Some Ptolemy perhaps!----
_Naut._ Who by his pyramid and pickle thought to secure to himself death immortal.
_Fos._ His pyramid, alas! is now but a wainscot case.
_Pos._ And his pickle can scarce raise him to the dignity of a collar of brawn.
_Fos._ Pardon me, Dr. Possum: The musaeum of the curious is a lasting monument. And I think it no degradation to a dead person of quality, to bear the rank of an anatomy in the learned world.
_Naut._ By your favour, Dr. Possum, a collar of brawn! I affirm, he is better to be taken inwardly than a collar of brawn.
_Fos._ An excellent medicine! he is hot in the first-degree, and exceeding powerful in some diseases of women.
_Naut._ Right, Dr. Fossile; for your Asphaltion.
_Pos._ Pice-Asphaltus, by your leave.
_Naut._ By your leave, doctor Possum, I say, Asphaltion.
_Pos._ And I positively say, Pice-Asphaltus.
_Naut._ If you had read Dioscorides or Pliny--
_Poss._ I have read Dioscorides. And I do affirm Pice-Asphaltus.
_Foss._ Be calm, Gentlemen. Both of you handle this argument with great learning, judgment, and perspicuity. For the present, I beseech you to concord, and turn your speculations on my alligator.
_Poss._ The skin is impenetrable even to a sword.
_Naut._ Dr. Possum I will show you the contrary.
[_Draws his sword._
_Poss._ In the mean time I will try the mummy with this knife, on the point of which you shall smell the pitch, and be convinc'd that it is the Pice-Asphaltus.
[_Takes up a rusty knife._
_Foss._ Hold, Sir: You will not only deface my mummy, but spoil my Roman sacrificing-knife.
Enter TOWNLEY.
_Town._ I must lure them from this experiment, or we are discover'd.
[_Aside._
[_She looks through a telescope._
What do I see! most prodigious! a star as broad as the moon in the day-time!
[_The doctors go to her._
_Poss._ Only a halo about the sun, I suppose.
_Naut._ Your suppositions, doctor, seem to be groundless. Let me make my observation.
[_Nautilus and Possum struggle to look first._
_Town._ Now for your escape:
[_To Plotwell and Underplot._
[_They run to the door, but find it lock'd._
_Underp._ What an unlucky dog I am!
_Town._ Quick. Back to your posts. Don't move, and rely upon me. I have still another artifice.
[_They run back to their places._
[_Exit Townley._
_Naut._ I can espy no celestial body but the sun.
_Poss._ Brother Nautilus, your eyes are somewhat dim; your sight is not fit for astronomical observations.
_Foss._ Is the focus of the gla.s.s right? hold gentlemen, I see it; about the bigness of Jupiter.
_Naut._ No phenomenon offers itself to my speculation.
_Poss._ Point over yonder chimney. Directly south.
_Naut._ Thitherward, begging your pardon, Dr. Possum, I affirm to be the north.
_Foss._ East.
_Poss._ South.
