Lionizing

-------- all people went
Upon their ten toes in wild wonderment.

--_ Bishop Hall's Satires_.

I AM - that is to say I was - a great man; but I am neither the
author of Junius nor the man in the mask; for my name, I believe, is
Robert Jones, and I was born somewhere in the city of Fum-Fudge.

The first action of my life was the taking hold of my nose with
both hands. My mother saw this and called me a genius: my father wept
for joy and presented me with a treatise on Nosology. This I mastered
before I was breeched.

I now began to feel my way in the science, and soon came to
understand that, provided a man had a nose sufficiently conspicuous
he might, by merely following it, arrive at a Lionship. But my
attention was not confined to theories alone. Every morning I gave my
proboscis a couple of pulls and swallowed a half dozen of drams.

When I came of age my father asked me, one day, If I would step
with him into his study.

"My son," said he, when we were seated, "what is the chief end of
your existence?"

"My father," I answered, "it is the study of Nosology."

"And what, Robert," he inquired, "is Nosology?"

"Sir," I said, "it is the Science of Noses."

"And can you tell me," he demanded, "what is the meaning of a
nose?"

"A nose, my father;" I replied, greatly softened, "has been
variously defined by about a thousand different authors." [Here I
pulled out my watch.] "It is now noon or thereabouts - we shall have
time enough to get through with them all before midnight. To commence
then: - The nose, according to Bartholinus, is that protuberance --
that bump - that excrescence - that - "

"Will do, Robert," interrupted the good old gentleman. "I am
thunderstruck at the extent of your information - I am positively --
upon my soul." [Here he closed his eyes and placed his hand upon his
heart.] "Come here!" [Here he took me by the arm.] "Your education
may now be considered as finished - it is high time you should
scuffle for yourself - and you cannot do a better thing than merely
follow your nose -- so - so - so - " [Here he kicked me down stairs
and out of the door] - "so get out of my house, and God bless you!"

As I felt within me the divine afflatus, I considered this
accident rather fortunate than otherwise. I resolved to be guided by
the paternal advice. I determined to follow my nose. I gave it a pull
or two upon the spot, and wrote a pamphlet on Nosology forthwith.

All Fum-Fudge was in an uproar.

"Wonderful genius!" said the Quarterly.