No More Learning

What am I to suppose by
your permitting Tom, Dick, and Harry to strip me of my coffins, and my
clothes, in this wretchedly cold climate? In what light (to come to the
point) am I to regard your aiding and abetting that miserable little
villain, Doctor Ponnonner, in pulling me by the nose? "

It will be taken for granted, no doubt, that upon hearing this speech
under the circumstances, we all either made for the door, or fell into
violent hysterics, or went off in a general swoon. One of these three
things was, I say, to be expected. Indeed each and all of these lines of
conduct might have been very plausibly pursued. And, upon my word, I am
at a loss to know how or why it was that we pursued neither the one nor
the other. But, perhaps, the true reason is to be sought in the spirit
of the age, which proceeds by the rule of contraries altogether, and
is now usually admitted as the solution of every thing in the way of
paradox and impossibility. Or, perhaps, after all, it was only the
Mummy's exceedingly natural and matter-of-course air that divested his
words of the terrible. However this may be, the facts are clear, and no
member of our party betrayed any very particular trepidation, or seemed
to consider that any thing had gone very especially wrong.

For my part I was convinced it was all right, and merely stepped aside,
out of the range of the Egyptian's fist. Doctor Ponnonner thrust his
hands into his breeches' pockets, looked hard at the Mummy, and grew
excessively red in the face. Mr. Glidden stroked his whiskers and drew
up the collar of his shirt. Mr. Buckingham hung down his head, and put
his right thumb into the left corner of his mouth.
The Egyptian regarded him with a severe countenance for some minutes and
at length, with a sneer, said:

"Why don't you speak, Mr. Buckingham? Did you hear what I asked you, or
not? Do take your thumb out of your mouth! "

Mr. Buckingham, hereupon, gave a slight start, took his right thumb out
of the left corner of his mouth, and, by way of indemnification inserted
his left thumb in the right corner of the aperture above-mentioned.

Not being able to get an answer from Mr. B. , the figure turned peevishly
to Mr. Gliddon, and, in a peremptory tone, demanded in general terms
what we all meant.

Mr. Gliddon replied at great length, in phonetics; and but for the
deficiency of American printing-offices in hieroglyphical type, it would
afford me much pleasure to record here, in the original, the whole of
his very excellent speech.

I may as well take this occasion to remark, that all the subsequent
conversation in which the Mummy took a part, was carried on in primitive
Egyptian, through the medium (so far as concerned myself and other
untravelled members of the company)--through the medium, I say, of
Messieurs Gliddon and Buckingham, as interpreters. These gentlemen spoke
the mother tongue of the Mummy with inimitable fluency and grace; but I
could not help observing that (owing, no doubt, to the introduction of
images entirely modern, and, of course, entirely novel to the stranger)
the two travellers were reduced, occasionally, to the employment of
sensible forms for the purpose of conveying a particular meaning.
Mr. Gliddon, at one period, for example, could not make the Egyptian
comprehend the term "politics," until he sketched upon the wall, with
a bit of charcoal a little carbuncle-nosed gentleman, out at elbows,
standing upon a stump, with his left leg drawn back, right arm thrown
forward, with his fist shut, the eyes rolled up toward Heaven, and
the mouth open at an angle of ninety degrees.