------------------ XVIII. I DISCOVER THAT I DO NOT POSSESS THE BUMP OF COMBATIVENESS. THE doctor looked grave as he answered: “My dear Bicquerot, if you ask that question seriously, I will reply. But if you are only joking, pray don’t do so any more. It is too serious a subject to laugh at.” My father having declared that he was not joking at all, the doctor looked round him in a suspicious manner and lowered his voice as he said, “I have discovered things that would make your hair stand on end if I disclosed them to you. I have discovered a real science, an infallible science——” “Then,” said my father, “do you seriously believe that our character and destiny in the world depend upon the form and size of the bumps on our skulls?” “Yes; I do believe it,” answered the doctor with the air of a resigned and misunderstood genius, as he folded his hands in front of him. “Yes, I do believe it: O Bicquerot!” he repeated. “Well, I confess,” began my father. “Thirty years’ experiences, thirty years of study and researches, have I spent!” cried the doctor, “and have at last found the truth! Here, read this,”—he felt in the side pocket of his coat and pulled out a yellow pamphlet—“read this, I say, and the scales will drop from your eyes.” “However, doctor, look here,” my father again tried to begin. It was the doctor’s turn to become impatient. “It is not a question of _However!_ it is not a question of _Doctor!_ It is not a question of _Look here!_ at all,” he exclaimed. “Truth is truth. Let me feel the head of the first comer, I will tell him: ‘Sir, you have such and such a bump. Very well, you will do such and such a thing; you will not be able to help it. You who have the bump of _murder_, you will be a _murderer_. Science declares _that you must become a murderer_!’ But he answers me: ‘I have always been a quiet, peaceable man; I have lived for fifty years in the world and have never hurt anyone yet, not even a fly!’ ‘Never mind, my friend,’ I say; ‘in two years, in ten years, you will be a _murderer_! and if you die without being one, remember that you would have been one, only you had no opportunity.’” “Oh, come! that’s too much!” cried my mother, scandalized and shocked. “Well, madame, perhaps I exaggerate a little, but it is in order that you may understand me better,” and the doctor proceeded to tell us many extraordinary things which I did not in the least understand, and which made my mother very indignant and my father discontented. He went on laying down the law, without attending to any remarks or objections made by his listeners; at last he finished up a long confused rigmarole with the following words:—