Be fitting for a head-master.
His red shaggy eyebrows were so prominent, that he habitually used
them as arms and hands for the purpose of pointing out any object
towards which he wished to direct attention; the rest of his
features were equally striking in their way, and were all and all
his own; he wore a fancy dress partly resembling the costume of
Napoleon, and partly that of a widow-woman. I could not by any
possibility have named anybody more decidedly differing in
appearance from the rest of the human race.
"Whom do you name?" - "I name John Keate." - "Now, what do you see?"
said the wizard to the boy. - "I see," answered the boy, "I see a
fair girl with golden hair, blue eyes, pallid face, rosy lips."
THERE was a shot! I shouted out my laughter to the horror of the
wizard, who perceiving the grossness of his failure, declared that
the boy must have known sin (for none but the innocent can see
truth), and accordingly kicked him downstairs.
One or two other boys were tried, but none could "see truth"; they
all made sadly "bad shots."
Notwithstanding the failure of these experiments, I wished to see
what sort of mummery my magician would practise if I called upon
him to show me some performances of a higher order than those which
had been attempted.
