"Eyes!--my dear Bon-Bon, eyes! did you say?--oh! ah! I perceive. The ridiculous prints, eh? which are in circulation, have given you a false idea of my personal appearance. Eyes!!--true. Eyes, Pierre Bon-Bon, are very well in their proper place--_that_, you would say, is the head--right--the head of a worm. To _you_ likewise these optics are indispensable--yet I will convince you that my vision is more penetrating than your own. There is a cat, I see, in the corner--a pretty cat!--look at her!--observe her well. Now, Bon-Bon, do you behold the thoughts--the thoughts, I say--the ideas--the reflections--engendering in her pericranium? "There it is now!--you do not. She is thinking we admire the profundity of her mind. She has just concluded that I am the most distinguished of ecclesiastics, and that you are the most superfluous of metaphysicians. Thus you see I am not altogether blind: but to one of my profession the eyes you speak of would be merely an incumbrance, liable at any time to be put out by a toasting iron or a pitchfork. To you, I allow, these optics are indispensable. Endeavor, Bon-Bon, to use them well--_my_ vision is the soul." Hereupon the guest helped himself to the wine upon the table, and pouring out a bumper for Bon-Bon, requested him to drink it without scruple, and make himself perfectly at home. "A clever book that of yours, Pierre"--resumed his majesty, tapping our friend knowingly upon the shoulder, as the latter set down his glass after a thorough compliance with this injunction. "A clever book that of yours, upon my honor. It's a work after my own heart. Your arrangement of matter, I think, however, might be improved, and many of your notions remind me of Aristotle. That philosopher was one of my most intimate acquaintances. I liked him as much for his terrible ill temper, as for his happy knack at making a blunder. There is only one solid truth in all that he has written, and for that I gave him the hint out of pure compassion for his absurdity. I suppose, Pierre Bon-Bon, you very well know to what divine moral truth I am alluding." "Cannot say that I----" "Indeed!--why I told Aristotle that by sneezing men expelled superfluous ideas through the proboscis." "Which is--hiccup!--undoubtedly the case"--said the metaphysician, while he poured out for himself another bumper of Mousseux, and offered his snuff-box to the fingers of his visiter.