"I never knew scientists could rise to such occasions. Old Mangum orally labelled and classified Goodloe and myself easily among the lowest orders of the vertebrates; and in English, too, without going any further into Latin than the simple references to Orgetorix, Rex Helvetii--which is as far as I ever went, myself. And he told us that if he ever caught us around his house again he would add us to his collection."

Orgetorix appears on first page of Caesar's Commentaries, but dies, perhaps by suicide, before the second page. Humor, but I can't explain the joke.

Well, my tolerance for esoterica is relatively low compared to most of the crowd here on AWAD, so this reference to Orgetorix to me seems utmostly too rare! Bingley might offer a comment that would win me over...

I was making a wry comment on O.Henry's sense of humor.

Seems to me the joke is about the fact that the reader didn't go beyond page two of Caesar's commentaries, ie, his reading (of the book), lasted no longer than Orgetorix's life (in the book). Feeble, maybe?

Makes sense to me--and it's comical and so true! It would be interesting to see our collective list of great tomes we'd begun and had only made it through the first, oh, ten pages!