My business now became to seek a skull of a more modern period. I applied at a number of likely places, and at last was successful in obtaining a fine, large specimen, which had a clean and refined appearance. I paid but a small sum for it, and carried it home to my study in triumph. Surely at last I was on the road to the development of my pet project. After dinner, all being quiet, I commenced experiments upon the skull, and having placed my apparatus in order, I asked my usual question: “Who are you?” “Sidney Smith,” came the reply. Good gracious, I thought, can this be the great wit? “You do not mean to say,” I asked, “that you are the great Sidney Smith?” “I reckon you have just hit the right nail on the head,” was the immediate thought-reply. What a piece of luck. “Well, Mr. Smith, such men as you the world sees but too rarely; your name is still a household word among us, being constantly quoted as that of the brightest star of wit of your day.” “Whip you mean?” came from the skull. “No; I said _wit_; a jocular person, you know.” “I ain’t no wit nor jocular person,” was the response, “not as I knows what ‘jocular’ is exactly, but if it is anything to do with a jockey it’s nothing to do with me, for I stood six feet four, and weighed seventeen stone. If you calls me a ‘whip’ instead of a ‘wit,’ there you are right, for I drove the York and Manchester coach for over twenty years.” I found my subject very garrulous, very thick-headed, and very quarrelsome--a man of high stature but low breeding; one who knew nothing of any subjects but those of a horsey nature. One day our conversation became so warm, and such a string of bad language flooded the fellow’s brain-ether, that I had to disconnect my battery. I left the cranium for some days, thinking that the man’s temper would have cooled down, for I supposed that when I disconnected the electric wires the current of thought ceased; but when I applied the wires to my head, I found that the old store of abuse was still at work in the brain-ether of my giant subject, and the end of the matter was, that I smashed the beautiful skull into a thousand fragments against my study wall, thus dissipating the soul or brain-ether into space. I did not regret the occurrence, for the fellow was most vituperative and impertinent whenever I wished to know anything of his family secrets or earthly career. Still, when I think of it, I have a deal for which to thank that giant skull. It was during the fortnight that I possessed it that I, to a great extent, perfected my apparatus for Soul-Reading, Brain-Ether-Reviewing, Etherealized-Human-Record-Deciphering, or whatever men may term my discovery, for I have not yet invented a title for it myself. I therefore thank that broken vase of humanity, though being broken, I cannot convey my thanks as I would wish, for there is no brain-ether left to convey it to. Alas, poor giant!