There are a good many fine points about the porcupine. Church, the keeper, once got half-a-dozen of them in his calf, and went to bed for a week to celebrate the occasion. The porcupine is one of those animals that look pleasantest from the front. There his bristles all lie back smoothly from his forehead, giving him an aspect as æsthetically and Wildely tame as may be. But behind--well, you get a view of all his fine points. A little irritation--a very little--brings up his fine points in spiky array, as though he were caught from behind in a gale of wind. There are no Irish porcupines, which is remarkable when you consider that, in a fight, the porcupine invariably advances backward, most valorously retreating to the front in pursuit of the enemy to which he turns his back, and pressing forward courageously to the rear. That is to say, in a manner less mixed, that the porcupine always attacks an enemy by springing backward at him, with spines extended. He has a tremendous set of teeth, like chisels, but these he never uses except to chew up timber with. He will never fight with his teeth, being apprehensive of a punch on the nose, where he is tender. But in his advance to the rear he is formidable, and wonderfully quick. I have already mentioned Church's experience. The night is the time of the porcupines' greatest activity, and then they are apt to fight, springing backward at one another, losing quills and tearing out specimen lumps of anatomy at a terrific rate. In the daytime the porcupine is not an active creature. He drags himself clumsily along with his armament rattling behind him, taking no more trouble than to glance at Church on the chance of a donation of the adamantine biscuits and similarly inflexible food that most delights him, and receiving disappointment or the refreshment with equal equanimity. [Illustration] [Illustration] [Illustration] [Illustration] [Illustration] [Illustration] _Stories from the Diary of a Doctor._ _By the Authors of_ "THE MEDICINE LADY." XII.--THE PONSONBY DIAMONDS. Few cases in their day interested me more than that of Beryl Temple, and this, not so much from the medical point of view as from the character of this strong-minded and brave girl. It was on the occasion of her mother's death that I first became acquainted with Beryl. She suffered keenly at the time, but her courage and presence of mind and fine self-suppression aroused my interest, and when, a month afterwards, she came to me and told me in the simple manner which always characterized her that she was not only friendless but without means of support, I eagerly asked in what way I could help her. She replied with a blush, and something like tears in her eyes. "Of all things in the world," she said, "I should like best to be trained as a hospital nurse--do you think I am suited to the profession?"