many and particular qualifications, the bibulus
Americanus, in the family of the vacca. For as you well know, sir - or, as I
presume I should say, Doctor - you have the Medical Diploma, no doubt?«
    »You give me credit for an honour I can not claim,« interrupted the other.
    »An under-graduate! or perhaps your degrees have been taken in some other of
the liberal sciences?«
    »Still wrong, I do assure you.«
    »Surely, young man, you have not entered on this important - I may say this
awful service, without some evidence of your fitness for the task! - some
commission by which you can assert an authority to proceed, or by which you may
claim, an affinity and a communion with your fellow-workers, in the same
beneficent pursuits!«
    »I know not, by what means, or for what purposes, you have made yourself
master of my objects!« exclaimed the youth, reddening, and rising with a
quickness, which manifested how little he regarded the grosser appetites, when a
subject nearer his heart was approached. »Still, sir, your language is
incomprehensible. That pursuit which in another might perhaps be justly called
beneficent, is, in me a dear and cherished duty; though why a commission should
be demanded or needed, is, I confess, no less a subject of surprise.«
    »It is customary to be provided with such a document,« returned the Doctor
gravely, »and, on all suitable occasions to produce it, in order that congenial
and friendly minds, may at once, reject unworthy suspicions, and stepping over,
what may be called the elements of discourse, come at once, to those points
which are desiderata, to both.«
    »It is a strange request!« the youth muttered, turning his frowning eye,
from one to the other, as if examining the characters of his companions, with a
view to weigh their physical powers. Then, putting his hand into his bosom he
drew forth a small box and extending it, with an air of dignity towards the
Doctor, he continued - »you will find by this, sir, that I have some right, to
travel in a country, which is now the property of the American States.«
    »What have we here!« exclaimed the Naturalist, opening the folds of a large
parchment. »Why, this is the sign manual of the Philosopher Jefferson! The seal
of State! Countersigned, by the Minister of War! Why this is a commission