The Freemason's Daughter: A Novel — page 239: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

232 THE FREEMASON’S DAUGHTER. CHAPTER XVII. Is he skilled—the mummy-looking leech ! In drugs and minerals, sir, beyond belief ? Tis said he can breed poison in the air, Send death or madness in a perfumed flower, And work his will by ways so strange That ignorance deems it magic ! THE ROSICRUCIAN. Mr. Crab was seated in the little room in the asylum which he called his study, and where he generally received his visitors. It was studiously arranged for effect: a small library of books, chiefly on medical science —or rather that portion of it which treated on insanity —filled the handsomely-carved cases which lined the walls: over them were plaster-casts of Galen, Hunter, Sir Astley Cooper, and other friends of humanity. Mr. Crab’s own bust, in Parian marble, presented to him by a subscription of private friends, stood upon a pedestal between the windows, which looked into the show-yard of the establishment. We use the term show-yard advisedly, for it was the only one intended to be seen by the general class of visi- tors—those who came to consult him, or made arrange- ments for the reception of some relative or friend, COniiclooecl SS (SO