by his feelings; he felt me pluck his coat. The first thing that he ordered me to do when I came to be his man, was always to twitch his coat at twelve and six to a minute; and I can trust to my watch to a second.'

"Lord bless me!" said I, "how simple things are when one once knows them."

66

Simple enough," cried Cousin John-" I really wonder you did not twig the sign before."

"I wonder so too, now," said Mr. Hand-" but there's many a simpler thing has puzzled many a wiser man."

SUCH were the simple stories and conversations that served to enliven that primitive but pleasant fireside; but every now and then Dr. Dally, when there, used to make a variety by tricks of sleight-of-hand that he knew, and by exhibitions which, though well known to all better acquainted with scientific principles, appeared to our young eyes as actual magic. One evening in he came, to our surprise, with Samuel Davis carrying the yard-cock in his hands. "Now," said he "I'll shew you a curiosity." He made Samuel Davis set the cock, which appeared very

desirous to get out of his hands, on the table. The cock made a great cackling and squalling, but Dr. Dally, causing some one to hold the cock's head close down to the table, took out a piece of chalk, and drew a line from his beak across the table. Samuel Davis and the person who held his head down were then commanded to let the cock go and to our amazement he stood stock still, his beak fixed on the line, and seemed bound by a spell that he could not break. Presently after, Dr. Dally took up the cock and gave it to Samuel Davis to take away, when it seemed again to recover the use of its limbs, and began to squall and scuffle as hard as ever.

Of course this was a fact which wonderfully astonished us all, and made us attribute it to magic; but it is a wellknown thing, and which anybody may do.

Another evening, he came hopping in with a face of great agony, and exclaimed, "See! see! what has happened!" We looked, and to our horror and amaze, saw a huge iron skewer thrust through the calf of his leg, going in on one side and passing out at the other, at least six inches. Everybody was frightened and horrified, when, pulling out the wire, he burst out a-laughing. When our surprise was sufficiently abated to allow us to attend, he shewed us that the wire was merely so bent in the middle as to pass behind the leg, and so only looked as if it passed through. When the thing was explained we had all a good hearty laugh at the joke and our fears, and then each of us boys must do the same trick.

On another occasion, seeing a long tobacco-pipe lying on the table, he took out his watch, laid it upon the table, balanced the pipe upon its face, took up a wine-glass, wiped it briskly with his handkerchief, held it to the fire a few seconds, and then approaching it near to one end of

the pipe, the pipe immediately began to run after the glass; and by carrying the wine-glass still a little before the pipe, he soon had the pipe spinning round on the watch-face at a rapid rate.

This is a very beautiful experiment, an electrical phenomenon, in fact, which may be exhibited in any house at any time. Another which delighted us very much, and which we very often afterwards used to repeat, as we did this, was one which shewed us other laws of matter quite as curious. This was to take a goblet—a common drinking-glass; fill it with water; then, holding it by the stem with one hand, place a piece of paper over the glass with the other hand; then drop that hand upon the paper, and, turning the glass upside down, take away the hand from beneath the paper, and the paper prevented the water from falling out. This curious effect, which is readily explained by the pressure of the air above being removed from the water by the glass being now uppermost; and the pressure of the air from beneath being sufficient to prevent its descent, while it has the paper as a solid medium to act against, was rendered more striking by his holding the glass bottom uppermost for some time, carrying it about from place to place, and even repeatedly shaking it strongly. Sometimes he would lay the glass mouth downwards on a table and draw the paper from under the glass, and there was the water still standing in the glass, and yet not a drop running out; here, however, unless the paper were very dexterously introduced again between the table and the glass, all the water was spilled in attempting to remove the glass, and you had a slop. A similar thing he sometimes shewed us, by filling a common milk-tin-one of those that have a circular handle over the top-with water, and swinging it slowly round, so as to let us see that when it was

over his head, with the bottom upwards, not a drop of water fell out. If it were only kept there one moment stationary, down came all the water in a deluge. This he did to shew us the effect of a centrifugal motion, and, when explained to us, interested us greatly, but was not so popular with us as the former.

Another of his favourite acts for our amusement was to represent a ship on fire at sea, by floating a lump of camphor on a large basin of water, and setting it on fire, when it floated about in a flame till totally consumed, while he kept our imaginations awake by talking of it as a real ship; pitying the people on board; asking us where they were to flee to on the wide, wide ocean, where there was no backdoor to run out of; now imagining that he saw the people putting out a boat-now that we were near, in some other ship, and put out our boats to the aid of the distressed crew and passengers in that awful situation. And then he launched a couple of walnut-shells, and we propelled them to the side of the burning ship, and helped all the eager people in by degrees; and we were hard set to beat off the rest when our boats were full, and push away, and get them aboard of our vessel, and then back for more! And then, when we brought the last away, and once saw them in our strong fancies on our own deck, what a clapping of hands, and what a shout of triumph we set up! and it was only when we saw the poor blazing hulk topple over and go down, that we said "O! the poor merchant at home, that knows nothing about it, and perhaps now is talking of 'my ship on the high seas,' and saying what he will give his wife and children when she comes richly laden safe into port."

Another scheme which furnished its share of amusement was thus exhibited by our friend the doctor. A common