- end_line
- 1745
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:48:05.590Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 1666
- text
- leaves of some ancient and tattered folio, with a binding dark and
shaggy as the bark of any old oak. It seemed as if supernatural lore
must needs pertain to this gravely, ruddy personage; at least far
foresight, pleasant wit, and working wisdom. Old age seemed in no wise
to have dulled him, but to have sharpened; just as old dinner-knives—so
they be of good steel—wax keen, spear-pointed, and elastic as
whale-bone with long usage. Yet though he was thus lively and vigorous
to behold, spite of his seventy-two years (his exact date at that time)
somehow, the incredible seniority of an antediluvian seemed his. Not
the years of the calendar wholly, but also the years of sapience. His
white hairs and mild brow, spoke of the future as well as the past. He
seemed to be seven score years old; that is, three score and ten of
prescience added to three score and ten of remembrance, makes just
seven score years in all.
But when Israel stepped within the chamber, he lost the complete effect
of all this; for the sage’s back, not his face, was turned to him.
So, intent on his errand, hurried and heated with his recent run, our
courier entered the room, inadequately impressed, for the time, by
either it or its occupant.
“Bon jour, bon jour, monsieur,” said the man of wisdom, in a cheerful
voice, but too busy to turn round just then.
“How do you do, Doctor Franklin?” said Israel.
“Ah! I smell Indian corn,” said the Doctor, turning round quickly on
his chair. “A countryman; sit down, my good sir. Well, what news?
Special?”
“Wait a minute, sir,” said Israel, stepping across the room towards a
chair.
Now there was no carpet on the floor, which was of dark-colored wood,
set in lozenges, and slippery with wax, after the usual French style.
As Israel walked this slippery floor, his unaccustomed feet slid about
very strangely as if walking on ice, so that he came very near falling.
“’Pears to me you have rather high heels to your boots,” said the grave
man of utility, looking sharply down through his spectacles; “don’t you
know that it’s both wasting leather and endangering your limbs, to wear
such high heels? I have thought, at my first leisure, to write a little
pamphlet against that very abuse. But pray, what are you doing now? Do
your boots pinch you, my friend, that you lift one foot from the floor
that way?”
At this moment, Israel having seated himself, was just putting his
right foot across his left knee.
“How foolish,” continued the wise man, “for a rational creature to wear
tight boots. Had nature intended rational creatures should do so, she
would have made the foot of solid bone, or perhaps of solid iron,
instead of bone, muscle, and flesh,—But,—I see. Hold!”
And springing to his own slippered feet, the venerable sage hurried to
the door and shot-to the bolt. Then drawing the curtain carefully
across the window looking out across the court to various windows on
the opposite side, bade Israel proceed with his operations.
“I was mistaken this time,” added the Doctor, smiling, as Israel
produced his documents from their curious recesses—“your high heels,
instead of being idle vanities, seem to be full of meaning.”
“Pretty full, Doctor,” said Israel, now handing over the papers. “I had
a narrow escape with them just now.”
“How? How’s that?” said the sage, fumbling the papers eagerly.
“Why, crossing the stone bridge there over the _Seen_”—
“_Seine_”—interrupted the Doctor, giving the French
pronunciation.—“Always get a new word right in the first place, my
friend, and you will never get it wrong afterwards.”
“Well, I was crossing the bridge there, and who should hail me, but a
suspicious-looking man, who, under pretence of seeking to polish my
boots, wanted slyly to unscrew their heels, and so steal all these
precious papers I’ve brought you.”
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