A Scientific Affair

1895

A weird looking "decayed gentlewoman from the country type" wandered into a curio shop the other day. She was of a species that might be classified as the "frazzled out, giddy widow" variety, skittish blond frizzes over an elderly face and youthful garb on a decrepit form. Round among the cases she strayed and peered; then she asked, "Mister, have you got any corals?" "These are all corals," the curio man replied, pointing into the cases. "Oh, but I mean the branching kind," she said. The "branching kind" were produced and inspected. Then the curio man waxed talkative on his wares.

"This is an interesting fossil," he said. "It is the Helio filium greenii, the only one in the world so far as known. I discovered it myself."

"Well," the incredulous dame inquired, "if it is the only one in the world and nobody ever saw it before you saw it, how did you know what its name was?" The fossil man's jaw rose and fell without utterance, and his scientific visitor tripped out of the door, remarking as she passed away, "Geology's a pretty science." — Chicago Tribune.