What are you made of?"

I? Why?"

Haven't you any sensitiveness? Don't these things touch any poor

remnant of delicate feeling in you?"

N--no," he said wonderingly, "they don't seem to. Why should they?"

O, dear me, how can you look so innocent, and foolish, and good, and

empty, and gentle, and all that, right in the hearing of such things as

those! Look me in the eye--straight in the eye. There, now then, answer

me without a flinch. Isn't Doctor Snodgrass your father, and isn't

Zylobalsamum your brother," [here Hawkins was about to enter the room,

but changed his mind upon hearing these words, and elected for a walk

down town, and so glided swiftly away], "and isn't your name Spinal

Meningitis, and isn't your father a doctor and an idiot, like all the

family for generations, and doesn't he name all his children after

poisons and pestilences and abnormal anatomical eccentricities of the

human body? Answer me, some way or somehow--and quick. Why do you

sit

there looking like an envelope without any address on it and see me going

mad before your face with suspense!"

Oh, I wish I could do--do--I wish I could do something, anything that

would give you peace again and make you happy; but I know of nothing--

288

The American Claimant