He Wanted to Know.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXX, Issue IX, 28 February 1903, Page 616

He Wanted to Know.

As an illustration of the insatiable curiosity of the small boy, an exchange tells this story of investigation which brought consternation to one family: Auntie Vad come all the way from her home to visit the family, and brought with her Caesar, her beautiful Maltese Angora. Aunt Susan was wealthy and childless. Hence Bertie, Mary and Susan were cautioned before her arrival not to do anything or say aught that might offend. Bertie was seventeen, of a seraphic countenance and a scientific turn of mind. Bertie was also, though young, an enthusiastic materialist, and, notwithstanding his big, dreamy blue eyes, totally devoid of sentiment. Surgery was his hobby. He pictured himself in the future as the greatest surgeon of the ageOne evening about two weeks after Aunt Susan’s arrival, Bertie burst in upon the family assembled in the sittingroom. His face was aflame and his eyes shone with the joy of a great discovery. ‘'Aunt Susan,” he cried, in a voice quivering with emotion, “yon are a benefactor of science; I have discovered the original function of the vermiform appendix. It is the purring apparatus in the feline. I anaesthised Caesar and then dissected him slowly—he was purring all the while —and found that the purrs came from his vermiform appendix, and had he lived only a few minutes longer I might have made a still greater discovery”—but Aunt Susan had fainted and paterfamilias was rolling up his 'sleeves, a. look of grim determination drawing down the muscles of his face.