Page:Cuthbert Bede--Little Mr Bouncer and Tales of College Life.djvu/138



DUSTACRE had the aspect of a bird; perhaps a raven, after its metempsychosis, would have presented much the same appearance. Pythagoras might have credited him to have belonged, at some previous stage of his existence, to a member of the corvine tribe; and even those who did not adopt the old Samian creed may, in looking at his strange face and the general solemnity of his countenance, have gazed upon him with a certain superstitious awe, as though he were a bird of ill omen. Physiologists and phrenologists, from Theophrastus to Gall, Spurzheim, and Lavater, would have been delighted to make their observations on the head and face of Dr. Dustacre, and to have propounded their pet theories from a superficial examination of his nose and forehead.

The latter was very high and bald, coming almost to a point at the summit where the skilled phrenologist