CHAPTER XXXIV.

_FAMES FAMÆ._

What is a fame, that overleaps distinctions? And how may a poor fellow get hold of it? I knew a man once, who could crackle all his knuckles, like a pair of four-chambered revolvers, and then fire off his wrists, and elbows, like double-barrelled rifles, after them. We called him the "distinguished knuckle-duster;" and he called himself, the "famous artilleryman." Would an exploit of that sort overleap the pride of birth; and endow our humble candles with the winding-sheet of pedigree?

It was not in my nature, to be put down, without having something to say for it. My mind was of ordinary substance, and perhaps rather heavy; to balance the body, as well as to keep the heart company, at times when the pair were in trouble together. But my body was not a mere somebody, neither an anybody, nor a common nobody; but a substance, in some wise remarkable, and surely as distinguished as that of the great knuckle-duster. He had won fame, to his own satisfaction; by deeds more surprising to the public ear, but far less so to the public eye, than those of which I was capable.

Now, which is more potent, the ear, or the eye? Which throws the quickest flash into the brain, and fills it with action the longest? Even before we have learned enough of speech, to be certain that all men are liars, how slowly creep in, at the sides of the head, the things that leap in, at the front of it! "Hot are the stings of the eye, but cold the pains of the ear," says an ancient; pithier for once than Horace.

This being so, what should prevent me, from attaining a hotter fame than even Mr. Panclast's? He could beat his drum upon the ear alone, and sound his own trumpet into waxy cells; but I could fly straight into the retina of the brain, and block the whole traffic of the optic nerve.

"I will cultivate the lofty gifts of nature," I exclaimed, when everybody else was gone to bed; "for the sake of my country, I am bound to do it. Sir Roland was right, and the great Professor wrong. Why did he say to me--'Fly no more; aerial Tommy, fly no more'? Why, simply because he is a Rad, and foresees confusion to the Rad race, in my powers when developed. So far as my own convictions go, there is scarcely the seed of a fig, between a Rad, and a Tory, when they are let alone. But the difference is, that a Rad can be lashed up, like a half-broken horse, into any fit of kicking, and cares not a rap, what he smashes in his rage. But a Tory is far less impetuous; he has a much stronger perception of the rights of others, and especially of his country's claim upon him. Such are the men, who are needed now. Panclast has an extraordinary gift of lashing up quiet folk, to kick against their neighbours, and of running round the corner, when his own legs are in jeopardy. However, he is the master of the yard for the present, in virtue of his powers of swearing, Roly says--but there must be a great deal more than that."

The upshot of my very callow reflections, was that I determined, to begin, at once, to improve my long dormant aerial gifts. Or rather, I should say, my repressed, and snubbed, and even dreaded specialty, of rising from the ground. Although my frame was firmer, and more weighty than it used to be, and therefore less elastic, and expansive, than in boyhood, there was room enough to hope, that some of, if not all these losses might be retrieved, by care and skill, by regimen, strict diet, and the increased power of the muscles. And if these proved insufficient, there could be no doubt of one thing--a very little artificial aid would liberate me, from the growing tyranny of gravitation.

With all this in my mind, I went to bed, and dreamed a dream; which, contrary to the usual laws of such visitants, became of the very greatest service to me.

My conscience had reproached me, while I said my prayers, for a very unworthy, and unjust reflection, upon Professor Megalow, as above set down. From him, I had received the very greatest kindness; and to imagine, that any party motives could have led him to dissuade me from invading the upper firmament, was very mean and nasty of me, as well as most absurd. He was not at all a partisan, or active politician, but quietly held his opinions, upon reasons which satisfied him, and therefore cannot have been weak ones. And my last thoughts, or nearly so, having been about him, he appeared to me naturally in my sleep.

I dreamed, that I stood between Professor Megalow and my old enemy, Professor Brachipod, in the schoolroom of the _Partheneion_. Dr. Rumbelow also was in the distance; with his college-cap on, and the biggest of all his canes under his arm. The two learned professors were discussing my case, with very great interest, and some warmth.

"He will never fly again," said Professor Megalow; "he is too solid now, and his bones are all set."

"The very reason for his flying all the more," quoth Brachipod, contradictory even in a dream. "He can not only mount, but propel himself now. See, I manipulate him, and off he goes, ten times as high as he ever went before!"

Then he did something to me, and up I went; while he shouted, "That proves my theory. Can anything be finer? Chocolous, Mullicles, and Jargoon, come and confess, what a set of fools you are. Bravo, Tommy, use your arms and legs!"

With such powerful action did I do this, while rushing up swift as a rocket, that I knocked half the roof of the _Partheneion_ off, yet stuck fast somehow, and could scarcely breathe.

And no wonder; for round my neck, when I awoke, was the linen sheet, tight as a bowstring; while my poor arms and legs, instead of oaring ambient air, were all twisted up in the counterpane, and blanket, like an "apple-pie bed," combined with what we used to call "cat's cradle." But the worst of all was, that I could not remember, (though I sat up in the bed, and thought, as soon as I was free) what in the world it was, that had been done to me, by Professor Brachipod, to send me up over people's heads at such a pace!

Neither, in the morning, could I call to mind an atom of the thing, that I wanted so much to recollect; though I knew, that it was something very simple, and most easy, and such as I could manage at almost any moment--just the very thing, in fact which alone was needed, to restore my early powers, and perhaps to place them, in some measure, under my own command. After cudgelling my slow brain to no purpose, I resolved to take the bull by the horns, and do no less, than go, and see Professor Brachipod himself.

On the brink of an enterprise so perilous, duty alike to my friends, and self, demanded all possible precaution. The first thing I did was to tell Uncle Bill--for I feared to let my mother know--whither he should send for my remains, if I did not come home by dinner-time. Also I took a most trusty friend, to walk up and down, on the opposite side of the street, and listen keenly for any squeal, at all like vivisection. Also, I had a great mind to buy an American revolver, but felt ashamed of such a relapse into savagedom, and was satisfied with a bit of English oak; such as my quickness of turn might avail with, against a robustness above my own. So with _Grip_ at my heels, I rang the bell.

The Professor was at home, and in answer to my card, sent a nice young lady, of Brachipod race, to say that he was just in the crisis of a very important experiment, but would come to me in a few minutes, if I could kindly wait so long.

"I am afraid we must hardly let that fine dog in;" she said, with a pleasant smile, which made me feel ashamed. "I am very fond of them; but dear papa is a little nervous now; he has not been well lately."

"I hope you will pardon me for bringing him," I answered, "but he is very old, and a walk is such a treat to him. May I put him in some outhouse? He is as quiet as a lamb. Oh, thank you; that will do beautifully. I hope, I am not interrupting the Professor; his time, of course, is so valuable."

Presently he came down; and I was thoroughly ashamed of my own alarm. Instead of the Brachipod, who used to jump, and gesticulate, and poke knuckles into me, I beheld an infirm, and disabled old man, who was killing himself prematurely, by wanting to know too much about it. His face was melancholy, and almost pitiful, as if from perpetual disappointment; his forehead was channeled with a chart of hopeless soundings; and even the vivacity of his eyes was sad.

"I am very glad to see you," he said kindly, and gazing with a little sigh at me. "I remember you well. But how much you are grown! I fear we used to frighten you, in the days gone by. We took the wrong course altogether. If we had only been gentle, and patient, we might have done much with your singular case, and learned things of very deep interest. It was bad luck. There were too many of us, and the spirit of rivalry spoiled everything. I should have kept you to myself, as I had every right to do. But poor Jargoon, and unhappy Chocolous--you have heard what a sad loss all Science has sustained? Have you not? They have both fallen victims to the spirit of research. I ought not to grieve for them; for there can be no nobler termination to a scientific life. Jargoon, as you know, had a doltish theory--though I should not call it that, when he cannot contradict me--about the universal action on all organisms, of what he called gaseous expansion. He made a great discovery, as he believed, of a primary element, 'Proto-hylic Nephelin,'--intensely inflammable in combination. He was trying its effects upon the human system, by inhalation through a straw; when unhappily Mrs. Jargoon struck a match, to seal an important letter. In a moment, the Professor, and his theories were abolished; so exhaustively, that they could hold the inquest, upon nothing but the calcination of his left glass-eye."

"I never heard anything more shocking," I exclaimed, forgetting all the evil, in the sadness of his end, and admiring the courage of the great discoverer. "And poor Professor Chocolous--was he abolished too?"

"Not so entirely; but perhaps more sadly. You know that by his theory--a perfectly absurd one--all causation was referred to the agency of bacilli--_bacteria_ we used to call them, but the other word is the more correct. Moreover, he was indulging in a life-long hope, to establish, in his own person, the one thing which alone convinces the multitude,--ocular proof (as the outsiders term it) that the human race has lost its noblest, and far more essential member than the head is--in a word, its tail, by assuming an attitude never contemplated, in the scientific stages of evolution. A learned American has, in my opinion, cut the ground from under the feet of Chocolous, by showing that the caudal loss results from the abandonment of the quadrumanous life; and that the only chance of recovery lies in the resignation, not of chair, but house, and the reinstitution of arboreal habitude. But, to pretermit his theories, (which appear to me weak and outrageous) his end, before even the nucleolus of a tail was established, is a most melancholy tale. The very day after he had inoculated his dextral ulna with a new bacillus (discovered in the windpipe of a duck) he received,--as the rule is with learned Germans, and the exception with learned Englishmen,--a most flattering invitation--which is in fact a command--to present himself in very high quarters. You may suppose, what a fuss he was in--for few of those foreigners have much self-respect--to put himself into his very best clothes, and to have all his theories ready in his hat. I suppose, that he would not be allowed to carry that, but I have never had the opportunity of learning."

"Surely, sir," I said, "with all your fame, and all the immense things, that you have discovered----"

"No, Tommy, no!" he replied, with much meekness; "but my scientific status is none the worse for that. However, Herr Chocolous, the distinguished German, was happy to be thought worth looking at; and he prepared himself well, in every point but one. He should have provided himself with cross-trees, or guttapercha buffers, ever so small, just to take his bearing. 'What will you do, if you have to sit down?' I asked him, with some prescience of the woe in store for him. 'Bosh!' was his answer, for he loved that word, 'zey vill never ask a poor man, like me, to seet!' 'Well, I dare say not,' I replied, having never found any occasion to understand such things; and off he went, standing up in a Hansom, and looking more like Punch, than a man of any science.

"About a fortnight afterwards, I was sent for, not to Court; oh no, no fear of that for an Englishman!--but to the death-bed of our poor Chocolous; for whom I had always entertained sincere affection and profound respect. I found him as lively as ever, and jumping, to show me how his theories had been established. There was no Mrs. Chocolous, as perhaps you know; and nobody to care for him, except the maid-of-all-work. But she was crying dreadfully; and he was proving to her some new and unsustainable theory of bacilli.

"'I vill be dead,' he cried, 'zis time to-morrow. For vy? For because my teory is ze true one. Both of zem, both of zem, proved in one second! Prachibot, if you leeve, tree tousand year, never you vill have sush triomp!'

"Of course I could not contradict him then; but as soon as I came to hear all about it, the only thing proved was the soundness of my advice. For it seems, that as soon as he had been introduced, and received most graciously; another great German appeared, of even superior eminence in another line. And our poor friend Chocolous was kindly asked to sit. He pretended not to hear, and made a very fine retreat, with a deep bow, and one heel going back behind the other. But not even so, could he back out. Very nicely, but firmly, was he told, (in total ignorance of all his magnificent theories) to sit down; which is not supposed to be the proper thing, in such a presence. The chairs were rather large, and had a very slippery covering, being at the same time hard, and bright. Nothing could be worse for a man to sit upon, who was cherishing hopes of inaugurating the recovery of our lost member.

"What could he do? He could neither sit down, nor by any means refuse to do so; the third course (as a great master of shuffling puts it) was to sit, and yet not to sit. And this the poor Professor was obliged to do, in a posture of cardinal adversity. He brought his _scapulæ_ to bear against the back of the chair, which was upright; then he super-posed, but not imposed, the sessile portion of his organisation; supporting his weight by his right wrist entirely, and maintaining non-contact in the critical quarters with the unscientific institution. This was most skilfully managed; as only a man deeply grounded in organisation could have organised it; and but for one little point, all had been well. This point was the simultaneity, of the great bacillar experiment, with the peril to caudal aspirations. Between two stools, or rather I should say, between the ulnar and the lumbar difficulty, Science lost one of her very brightest stars. The ligatures, skilfully placed to confine the experiment to a safe area, gave way, beneath the whole burden of a well-fed frame. The issue need not be described, although most deeply interesting. Mortification ensued; and our friend, acknowledged to be foremost in a most important study, left nothing but his papers, which I am now preparing, with the aid of Mullicles, for publication."

"What a sad case!" I could not help exclaiming; "really it seems, as if Science destroyed all her great admirers, as the female spider does; in addition to all the poor flies of the public. I do hope, Professor, that you will take care of yourself."

"There is no fear for me, because all my theories are sound," he replied, with a sweet smile of certainty; "but I have great misgivings about Mullicles. Histic fluxion, as he calls it, is his craze; and he pushes his experiments beyond the bounds of prudence. I am sure that it must be a great blow to you, to have heard, that of the four learned men, who desired to promote your interests in early life, two alone are left, for the study of your case. You are come to me, I doubt not, because you have discovered, with the aid of Professor Megalow (from whom I have heard of you, more than once, as a very promising acolyte) that my theory about you was the true one. I would only request you to be candid with me."

I was touched by his diffidence, and gladly told him everything; how the death of my dear father had entirely deprived me of all my early buoyancy through sudden exultation; and how, instead of that, my only tendency to rise was apparently created now by wrath, and sense of wrong. But even this, I told him, was a rare case now; especially as I had done my utmost to repress it. Then I added, that I wished, for reasons which I need not mention, to recover my peculiar gift, but keep it under my own control.

"I can promise you all but that last," he replied; "and that you can only secure, by returning to your former system of artificial weights. See how exactly everything has verified my diagnosis! 'Organic levigation' was the term I used, as if by a happy insight; and no better explanation can be rendered now. My dear young friend, you must place yourself entirely under my directions. But unhappily, I cannot undertake the matter _gratis_; though my ardour for Science would induce me so to do, if my circumstances were as they ought to be. You are well aware of the disgraceful fact, that in England there is no State-subvention for the highest of all purposes--scientific research. We spend all our substance, and our brains, without emolument, or honour; while those who make improvements in some trumpery handicraft, or poison the public by pure quackery, obtain position, and title, and large fortunes."

"But not the fame!" I answered with my usual politeness; and he smiled, and his pale, worn eyes glistened, through his double glasses.

Then I asked what his terms would be; and found them so moderate, that I doubled them; as was only fair to his high repute. But he made me pledge my honour to one thing--that during his lifetime I would not divulge his method, if it proved successful. I am happy to say that he still is living, and of very great renown, and good position; so that my promise remains still in force.