establishment Agassiz's laboratory, as distinguished from the
storerooms where the collections were crammed, occupied one room about
thirty feet long and fifteen feet wide--what is now the west room on
the lower floor of the edifice. In this place, already packed, I had
assigned to me a small pine table with a rusty tin pan upon it....

When I sat me down before my tin pan, Agassiz brought me a small fish,
placing it before me with the rather stern requirement that I should
study it, but should on no account talk to any one concerning it, nor
read anything relating to fishes, until I had his permission so to do.
To my inquiry, 'What shall I do?' he said in effect: 'Find out what you
can without damaging the specimen; when I think that you have done the
work I will question you.' In the course of an hour I thought I had
compassed that fish; it was rather an unsavory object, giving forth the
stench of old alcohol, then loathsome to me, though in time I came to
like it. Many of the scales were loosened so that they fell off. It
appeared to me to be a case for a summary report, which I was anxious
to make and get on to the next stage of the business. But Agassiz,
though always within call, concerned himself no further with me that
day, nor the next, nor for a week. At first, this neglect was
distressing; but I saw that it was a game, for he was, as I discerned
rather than saw, covertly watching me. So I set my wits to work upon
the thing, and in the course of a hundred hours or so thought I had
done much--a hundred times as much as seemed possible at the start. I
got interested in finding out how the scales went in series, their
shape, the form and placement of the teeth, etc. Finally, I felt full
of the subject, and probably expressed it in my bearing; as for words
about it then, there were none from my master except his cheery 'Good
morning.' At length, on the seventh day, came the question, 'Well?' and
my disgorge of learning to him as he sat on the edge of my table