Chapter VIII

It wanted a few minutes to eleven o’clock, the same night when Seaton turned into Long Acre on his peculiar business. A sharp walk soon brought him to the Alhambra, whence the people were pouring out into the square. Turning down —— Street, he soon reached his destination—a long narrow house, in total darkness—a sombre contrast to the neighbouring buildings, which were mostly a blaze of light, and busy with the occupations of life. A quiet double rap for some time produced no impression; and just as he had stood upon the doorstep long enough to acquire considerable impatience, a sliding panel in the door was pushed back, and a face, in the dim gas-light, was obtruded. A short but somewhat enigmatical conversation ensued, at the end of which the door was grudgingly opened, and Edgar found himself in black darkness. The truculent attendant having barricaded the exit, gave a peculiar whistle, and immediately the light in the hall was turned up. It was a perfectly bare place; but the carpet underfoot was of the heaviest texture, and apparently—as an extra precaution—had been covered with india-rubber matting, so that the footsteps were perfectly deadened; indeed, not the slightest footfall could be heard. Following his guide in the direction of the rear of the house, and ascending a short flight of steps, Edgar was thrust unceremoniously into a dark room, the door of which was immediately closed behind him and locked. For a few seconds, Edgar stood quite at a loss to understand his position, till the peculiar whistle was again repeated, and immediately, as if by magic, the room was brilliantly lighted. When Edgar recovered from the glare, he looked curiously around. It was a large room, without windows, save a long skylight, and furnished with an evident aim at culture; but though the furniture was handsome, it was too gaudy to please a tasteful eye. The principal component parts consisted of glass gilt and crimson velvet; quite the sort of apartment that the boy-hero discovers, when he is led with dauntless mien and defiant eye into the presence of the Pirate king; and indeed some of the faces of the men seated around the green board would have done perfectly well for that bloodthirsty favourite of our juvenile fiction.

There were some thirty men in the room, two-thirds of them playing rouge-et-noir; nor did they cease their rapt attention to the game for one moment to survey the new-comer, that office being perfectly filled by the Argus-eyed proprietor, who was moving unceasingly about the room. ‘Will you play, sare?’ he said insinuatingly to Edgar, who was leisurely surveying the group and making little mental notes for his guidance.

‘Thanks! Presently, when I have finished my cigar,’ he replied.

‘Ver good, sare, ver good. Will not m’sieu take some refreshment—a leetle champein or eau-de-vie?’

‘Anything,’ Edgar replied carelessly, as the polite proprietor proceeded to get the desired refreshment.

For a few minutes, Edgar sat watching his incongruous companions, as he drank sparingly of the champagne before him. The gathering was of the usual run of such places, mostly foreigners, as befitted the neighbourhood, and not particularly desirable foreigners at that. On the green table the stakes were apparently small, for Edgar could see nothing but silver, with here and there a piece of gold. At a smaller table four men were playing the game called poker for small stakes; but what particularly interested Edgar was a young man deep in the fascination of écarté with a man who to him was evidently a stranger. The younger man—quite a boy, in fact—was losing heavily, and the money on the table here was gold alone, with some bank-notes. Directly Edgar saw the older man, who was winning steadily, he knew him at once; only two nights before he had seen him in a gambling-house at the West End playing the same game, with the same result. Standing behind the winner was a sinister-looking scoundrel, backing the winner’s luck with the unfortunate youngster, and occasionally winning a half-crown from a tall raw-looking American, who was apparently simple enough to risk his money on the loser. Attracted by some impulse he could not understand, Edgar quitted his seat and took his stand alongside the stranger, who was losing his money with such simple good-nature.

‘Stranger, you have all the luck, and that’s a fact. There goes another piece of my family plate. Your business is better’n gold-mining, and I want you to believe it,’ drawled the American, passing another half-crown across the table.

‘You are a bit unlucky,’ replied the stranger, with a flash of his white teeth; ‘but your turn will come, particularly as the young gentleman is really the better player. I should back him myself, only I believe in a man’s luck.’

‘Wall, now, I shouldn’t wonder if the younker is the best player,’ the American replied, with an emphasis on the last word. ‘So I fancy I shall give him another trial. He’s a bit like a young hoss, he is—but he’s honest.’

‘You don’t mean to insinuate we’re not on the square, eh?’ said the lucky player sullenly; ‘because, if that is so’——

‘Now, don’t you get riled, don’t,’ said the American soothingly. ‘I’m a peaceable individual, and apt to get easily frightened. I’m a-goin’ to back the young un again.’

The game proceeded: the younger man lost. Another game followed, the American backing him again, and gradually, in his excitement, bending further and further over the table. The players, deep in his movements, scarcely noticed him.

‘My game!’ said the elder man triumphantly. ‘Did you ever see such luck in your life? Here is the king again.’

The American, quick as thought, picked up the pack of cards and turned them leisurely over in his hand. ‘Wall, now, stranger,’ he said, with great distinctness, ‘I don’t know much about cards, and that’s a fact. I’ve seen some strange things in my time, but I never—no, never—seed a pack of cards before with two kings of the same suit.’

‘It must be a mistake,’ exclaimed the stranger, jumping to his feet with an oath. ‘Perhaps the cards have got mixed.’

‘Wall, it’s not a nice mistake, I reckon. Out to Frisco, I seed a gentleman of your persuasion dance at his own funeral for a mistake like that. He didn’t dance long, and the exertion killed him; at least that’s what the crowner’s jury said.’

‘Do you mean to insinuate that I’m a swindler, sir? Do you mean to infer that I cheated this gentleman?’ blustered the detected sharper, approaching the speaker with a menacing air.

‘That _is_ about the longitude of it,’ replied the American cheerfully.

Without another word and without the slightest warning, the swindler rushed at the American; but he had evidently reckoned without his host, for he was met by a crashing blow full in the face, which sent him reeling across the room. His colleague deeming discretion the better part of valour, and warned by a menacing glance from Edgar, desisted from his evident intention of aiding in the attack.

By this time the sinister proprietor and the players from the other tables had gathered round, evidently, from the expression of their eyes, ripe for any sort of mischief and plunder. Clearly, the little group were in a desperate strait.

‘Have it out,’ whispered Edgar eagerly to his gaunt companion. ‘I’m quite with you. They certainly mean mischief.’

‘All right, Britisher,’ replied the American coolly. ‘I’ll pull through it somehow. Keep your back to mine.’

The proprietor was the first to speak. ‘I understand, sare, you accuse one of my customer of the cheat. Cheat yourself—pah!’ he said, snapping his fingers in the American’s face. ‘Who are you, sare, that comes here to accuse of the cheat?’

‘Look here,’ said the American grimly. ‘My name is Æneas B. Slimm, generally known as Long Ben. I don’t easily rile, you grinning little monkey; but when I do rile, I rile hard, and that’s a fact. I ain’t been in the mines for ten years without knowing a scoundrel when I meet him, and I never had the privilege of seein’ such a fine sample as I see around me to-night. Now you open that door right away; you hear me say it.’

The Frenchman clenched his teeth determinedly, but did not speak, and the crowd gathered more closely around the trio.

‘Stand back!’ shouted Mr Slimm—‘stand back, or some of ye will suffer. Will you open that door?’

The only answer was a rush by some one in the crowd, a movement which that some one bitterly repented, for the iron-clamped toe of the American’s boot struck him prone to the floor, sick and faint with the pain. At this moment the peculiar whistle was heard, and the room was instantly in darkness. Before the crowd could collect themselves for a rush, Mr Slimm passed his hand beneath his long coat-tails and produced a flat lantern, which was fastened round his waist like a policeman’s, and which gave sufficient light to guard against any attack; certainly enough light to show the hungry swindlers the cold gleam of a revolver barrel covering the assembly. The American passed a second weapon to Edgar, and stood calmly waiting for the next move.

‘Now,’ he said, sullenly and distinctly, ‘I think we are quits. We air going to leave this pleasant company right away, but first we propose to do justice. Where is the artist who plays cards with two kings of one suit? He’d better come forward, because this weapon has a bad way of going off. He need not fancy I can’t see him, because I can. He is skulking behind the brigand with the earrings.’

The detected swindler came forward sullenly.

‘Young man,’ said Mr Slimm, turning towards the boy who had been losing so heavily, ‘how much have you lost?’

The youngster thought a moment, and said about twenty pounds.

‘Twenty pounds. Very good.—Now, my friend, I’m going to trouble you for the loan of twenty pounds. I don’t expect to be in a position to pay you back just at present; but until I do, you can console yourself by remembering that virtue is its own reward. Come, no sulking; shell out that money, or’——

With great reluctance, the sharper produced the money and handed it over to the youth. The American watched the transaction with grave satisfaction, and then turned to the landlord. ‘Mr Frenchman, we wish you a very good-night. We have not been very profitable customers, nor have we trespassed upon your hospitality. If you want payment badly, you can get it out of the thief who won my half-crowns.—Good-night, gentlemen; we may meet again. If we do, and I am on the jury, I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt.’

A moment later, they were in the street, and walking away at a brisk pace, the ungrateful youth disappearing with all speed.

‘I am much obliged to you,’ Edgar said admiringly; ‘I would give something to have your pluck and coolness.’

‘Practice,’ replied the American dryly. ‘That isn’t what I call a scrape—that’s only a little amusement. But I was rather glad you were with me. I like the look of your face; there’s plenty of character there. As to that pesky young snip, if I’d known he was going to slip off like that, do you think I should have bothered about his money for him? No, sir.’

‘I fancy he was too frightened to say or do much.’

‘Perhaps so.—Have a cigar?—I daresay he’s some worn-out roué of eighteen, all his nerves destroyed by late hours and dissipation, at a time when he ought to be still at his books.’

‘Do you always get over a thing as calmly as this affair?’ asked Edgar, at the same time manipulating one of his companion’s huge cigars. ‘I don’t think dissipation has had much effect on _your_ nerves.’

‘Well, it don’t, and that’s a fact,’ Mr Slimm admitted candidly; ‘and I’ve had my fling too.—I tell you what it is, Mr—Mr’——

‘Seaton—Edgar Seaton is my name.’

‘Well, Mr Seaton, I’ve looked death in the face too often to be put out by a little thing like that. When a man has slept, as I have, in the mines with a matter of one thousand ounces of gold in his tent for six weeks, among the most awful blackguards in the world, and plucky blackguards too, his nerves are fit for most anything afterwards. That’s what I done, ay, and had to fight for it more than once.’

‘But that does not seem so bad as some dangers.’

‘Isn’t it?’ replied the American with a shudder. ‘When you wake up and find yourself in bed with a rattlesnake, you’ve got a chance then; when you are on the ground with a panther over you, there is just a squeak then; but to go to sleep expecting to wake up with a knife in your ribs, is quite another apple.—Well, I must say good-night. Here is Covent Garden. I am staying at the _Bedford_. Come and breakfast with me to-morrow, and don’t forget to ask for Æneas Slimm.’

‘I will come,’ said Edgar, with a hearty handshake.—‘Good-night.’

SNOW-BLOSSOM.

Under the above title, Professor Wittrock, in _Nordenskjöld’s Studies and Researches in the Far North_, has given us a wonderful and exhaustive account of the lowest order of plants—those which have their existence on the surface of the snow and ice, and colour the monotonous white or dirty gray of the everlasting snowfields with the warmest and most lovely rosy red and crimson, vivid green, and soft brown, until it almost appears as if these frigid zones have also their time of spring and blossom.

Late researches go to show that the snow and ice flora is far greater and richer than was at one time supposed. Formerly, people had only heard of ‘red snow’—which Agardh poetically calls ‘snow-blossoms’—and ‘green snow,’ first discovered by the botanist Unger—specimens of which were brought from Spitzbergen by Dr Kjellmann, and from Greenland by Dr Berlin. But a closer examination has discovered in the ‘green snow’ about a dozen different kinds of plants, and these not merely comprising the _lowest_ order, but also including some mosses. The latter, however, were only in their germinating state, looking like the green threads of algæ, and therefore showing a much inferior degree of development to that which they would have if growing on a warmer substratum. The flora of the loose snow, too, is generally far richer than that of the solid ice; already forty different varieties of plants having been found, which number will no doubt be greatly increased by every fresh expedition to the arctic zone. On the solid ice, only ten different kinds have been observed.

There is a great difference between the real ice and snow plants which grow exclusively on the snow-line and those hardened children of the sun which only grow on the snow. The latter all belong to the one-celled microscopic algæ of the lowest order, which increase by partition, possessing no generic character, and generally appearing in large horizontal masses of vegetable matter. They are also distinguished by seldom having the pure green chlorophyll colour of other plants, but instead display shades of red, brown, and sap green, whence they have been named coloured algæ.

Some botanists suppose that the chief and most numerous of all the algæ, the red snow, only represents a lower state of a higher class of algæ which has never attained to full development in the region of perpetual snow; and this supposition is the more remarkable, as the brilliant red granules of this species—about the four-thousandth part of an inch in diameter—probably surpass in reproductive powers every other plant. They cover enormous tracts of snow in such dense masses that it sometimes appears as if the snow was coloured blood-red to the depth of several feet. Ever since it was first found, red snow has greatly exercised the minds of the learned. It is often mentioned in old writings, though whether the red snow referred to took its colour from the red algæ or from the meteor-dust which contains iron, is not certain. But there is no doubt that it was the real red-snow algæ which De Saussure found in his Alpine expeditions. He mentions this phenomenon several times in 1760, and states that he had found the most beautiful species on Mont St Bernard, but had thought it must be pollen, wafted thither by the wind, although he knew of no plant that had that kind of red pollen.

The knowledge that the red snow of the polar regions and mountains owes its colour to a living plant, only dates from the year 1818, when Ross and Parry made their celebrated polar expedition, and Ross discovered the ‘crimson cliffs’ of the coast of Greenland, six hundred feet above the level of the sea. Here the red snow coloured the rocky walls of Baffin’s Bay a rich glowing crimson, reaching in some parts to a depth of nine or ten feet, and close to Cape York extending over a distance of eight nautical miles. Various were the surmises and conjectures as to the origin and nature of the phenomenon. Bauer was the first to examine it under a microscope, and he fancied the organic red granules represented a species of fungus. The same year, Charpentier, the great Alpine explorer, started the idea that the red appearance was caused by some meteoric matter, which, falling from the sky, spread over the immense tracts of snow. Hooker was the first who recognised the true nature of this new plant, and compared it to the red slime algæ which are found floating in blood-red masses in water or damp places; while Wrangel declared the granules had apparently no organic substratum, and they must therefore be of the lichen tribe, suggesting also that the germs were generated by the electricity in the air, for he had once seen a rock split in two by lightning, the sides of which were thickly covered with a red dust similar in nature to the ‘red snow.’ Two more botanists agreed that the red granules were ‘red powder that had become organic matter in the oxidised snow;’ the stern hard rock as it decayed had defied death, and come to life again in a new form. It remained for Agardh to put an end to these various fancies by proving the undoubted algal nature of the plant, and to give it, besides, its poetical name of ‘snow-blossom,’ the scientific one of crimson primitive snow-germ (_Protococcus Kermesina nivalis_). In 1838, Ehrenberg watched the development of this new species by sowing some specimens he had brought with him from the Swiss Alps, on snow, and noting how they developed first into green and then into red granules, joined together like a chain; he called it snow granulæ (_Sphærella nivalis_), which name it still bears.

Even now, the wild theories about the red snow were not yet ended. Seeing that the young spores of the algæ moved incessantly backwards and forwards in the water, the idea arose that they were animalcula, and ‘red snow’ only the lowest form of animal life. By degrees, however, it came to be an accepted fact that this voluntary motion does not belong exclusively to animal life, and that the young spores of the lower plants, although they move freely about in the water, and are plentifully provided with fine hair-like threads like the real infusoria, still remain plants, and never turn into animals. And thus the plant-nature of the ‘snow-blossom’ was finally settled.

The red-snow alga found on the Alps, Pyrenees, and Carpathians, and also on the summits of the North American mountains as far down as California, is not, however, such a determined enemy to heat as its having its home in the ice-region would imply. In the arctic circle, as well as on our own mountains of perpetual snow, especially on Monte Rosa, the red snow is seen in summer like a light rose-coloured film, which gradually deepens in colour, particularly in the track of human footsteps, till at length it turns almost black. In this state, however, it is not a rotten mass, but consists principally of carefully capsuled ‘quiescent spores,’ in which state these microscopic atoms pass the winter, bearing in this form the greatest extremes of temperature. Some have been exposed to a dry heat of a hundred degrees, and were found still to retain life-bearing properties; while others, again, were exposed with impunity to the greatest cold known in science. This proves that the reproductive organs in a capsuled state can hear vast extremes of temperature without injury; a significant fact, in which lies the secret of the indestructibility of those germs which are recognised as promoters of so many diseases.

Time, too, that great destroyer of most things, seems to pass harmlessly over this capsuled life. If the spores find no favourable outlet for their development, they do not die, no matter how long a time they may remain thus; and so the dried remains of red snow brought home from various polar expeditions have, even after the lapse of several years, fructified. During the uninterrupted light of the arctic summers, the ‘snow-blossom’ develops itself so rapidly, that at last it covers vast and endless tracts of snow. Although the sun does not rise very high above the horizon even at midsummer, yet, owing to the great clearness and dryness of the atmosphere in those high regions, it has a considerable degree of warmth at noon, and Nordenskjöld observed that one day in July, at mid-day, the temperature just above the snow was between twenty-five and thirty degrees centigrade. But it must not be supposed that the red alga vegetates in the pure snow; this would not be possible, as, according to chemical analysis, its body contains numerous mineral substances. The outer skin or membrane, particularly, in which the granulæ are stored seems to hold a quantity of silicon; but chalk, iron, and other mineral substances peculiar to the vegetable world, are also not found wanting in the ashes of the red snow. In fact, the upper surface of the snow and ice always shows, whenever it has lain long enough, a thin coating of inorganic dust, which brings to the snow alga the mineral constituent parts it requires.

Nordenskjöld gives some very interesting details about this dust, from observations made during his various expeditions. At one time it was supposed to be a slimy mass carried down from the hills which pierce the snow, and lodged on the lower stretches of its upper surface; but Nordenskjöld found this same dust in like quantity on the interior ice-fields of Greenland, where for miles around there were no mountains near, and also on ice-hummocks that quite surmounted the ice-plains, as well as on the nearest hills. During their long sojourn in the land of ice, they searched very carefully for any traces of small stones even as large as a pin’s head; but they could find none; while many square miles were covered by this fine dust, gray in its dry state, and becoming black when moist. It was therefore at last decided that this dark-coloured matter must be a precipitate from the atmosphere, and that the summer sun melting the snows, had allowed numerous dust-showers to accumulate thus, one on the top of the other. Nordenskjöld further thinks that it is not exclusively earth-dust wafted thither by currents of air, but that it contains a number of metallic particles, that can be extracted by a magnet, consisting, like the metallic meteor-stones, of iron, nickel, and cobalt. This metallic cosmic dust, which has been noticed previously in our pages, and which is spread over the whole world, is best observed and gathered on these vast snow and ice fields, and as it also bears a similitude to our ordinary earth-dust, Nordenskjöld has given it the name of Kyrokonit, or ice-dust.

At first, the alga of the red snow was looked upon as the sole inhabitant of the ice-lands of the polar regions; but in 1870, Dr Berggren, botanist of Nordenskjöld’s expedition, discovered a second or reddish-brown alga. It is allied to the ‘snow-blossom,’ but has this peculiarity, that it is never found on _snow_, but combined with the kyrokonit, it covers enormous tracts of _ice_, giving to them a beautiful purple brown tint, which greatly adds to their beauty. Besides growing on the surface of the ice, this red-brown alga was also found in holes one or two feet deep, and three or four feet across, in some parts so numerous and close together that there was scarcely standing-room between them. A closer examination showed that this very alga was the cause of these holes, as wherever it spreads itself, it favours the melting of the ice. The dark-brown body absorbs more heat than either the gray dust or the snow, therefore it sinks ever deeper into the hollows, until the slanting rays of the sun can no longer reach it.

Thus these microscopic algæ play the same part on the ice-fields of Greenland that small stones do on European glaciers. By creating holes, they give the warm summer air a larger surface to take hold of, and thus materially assist the melting of the ice. Perhaps it is to these microscopic atoms that we owe some of the vast changes that our globe has experienced; it may be by their agency that the vast wastes of snow that in the glacial period covered great tracts both of the European and American continents for some distance from the poles, have melted gradually away and given place to shady woods and fields of grain. It is indeed a remarkable instance of the power and importance of even the smallest thing in nature; all the more interesting in this case, that the sun creates for itself in these tiny dark atoms, the instruments for boring through the ice.

One important fact we must not forget to mention in conclusion, namely, that these microscopic plants have tempted many insects—to which they serve as food—into these inhospitable regions. A small black glacier flea lives principally on the red snow; and even in the arctic regions we find many tiny insects subsisting entirely on the red and green algæ. These insects, too, possess the same property as the algæ, of shutting themselves up in capsules during the long winter, and like them too, remain alive even when in a dried condition. When Professor Wittrock, in the winter of 1880 to 1881, placed the dried spores of the red snow in water to germinate, a number of tiny colourless worms appeared, still living. Thus even the stern, rigid north pole cannot prevent the universal spread of life; and if those cosmological prophets are right who declare that the whole surface of the earth will one day be covered with snow and ice, then these minute insects will have an ample store of food in the red, green, and brown algæ, and as the last of living beings, will be able to mock at the general stagnation; ay, perhaps even become the foundation of a fresh development of life on our earth, should any cosmical cause sufficiently increase the temperature.

OCCASIONAL NOTES.

EXTENDED USE OF GAS COOKING-STOVES.

We have repeatedly called attention to the practical utility and convenience of gas-stoves for cooking purposes, and facts to hand seem to show that these are being largely taken advantage of by the public. Many gas Companies now lend them out at a cheap rate, and they may be had for purchase at a price to suit most buyers. Since the Corporation Gas Company of Glasgow introduced the system of hiring out these stoves, about three thousand five hundred had been lent out in six months, and the demand continues unabated. In hotels, restaurants, and many a private home, they are found doing their work with economy, ease, and a great saving of labour.

Dr Stevenson Macadam, speaking of gas-cooking in its sanitary aspects, says: ‘The wholesomeness of the meat cooked in the gas-stoves must be regarded as beyond doubt; gas-cooked meat will be found to be more juicy and palatable, and yet free from those alkaloidal bodies produced during the confined cooking of meat, which are more or less hurtful, and even poisonous.’ A joint cooked in a gas-oven weighs heavier than the same joint cooked in a coal-oven, from the fact, that in the case of the gas-cooked joint the juices are more perfectly preserved.

At the East London Hospital, where the entire cooking for an enormous number of patients is done by gas, the managers calculate that fully six hundred pounds is saved yearly since the introduction of gas-cooking.

For the extended use of gas-stoves in Scotland, the public is greatly indebted to R. and A. Main, Glasgow, who are ever ready to adopt everything new in gas-apparatus. Gas is also now largely used in connection with washing by means of steam. When we noticed Morton’s Steam-washer, probably not more than half a dozen had adopted this easy and economical method of washing, in Scotland, and now those who do so may be counted by the hundred.

AUTOMATIC RAILWAY COUPLING.

For several months past, some of the goods-wagons working the traffic on the South Dock Railway lines of the East and West India Dock Company have (says the _Times_) been fitted with a new form of coupling, which possesses several important advantages over the ordinary coupling. Not the least of these are simplicity in construction and automaticity, combined with certainty in action. The coupling is the invention of Mr J. H. Betteley, of 42 Old Broad Street, London, and consists of a long shackle which is attached to the drawbar, and stands out at a slight angle of depression from the carriage or wagon. Connected with this shackle is a hook of special shape, which is attached to a bar running across the carriage front, and having a short lever fixed on either end just outside the buffers. To couple the vehicles, they are run together in the usual way, and, on meeting, the shackle on one carriage runs up the shackle on the other and instantly engages with the hook. Thus the shunter has no dangerous work whatever to perform. To uncouple, he has simply to depress the lever, which action raises the hook and releases the shackle. The hook is so formed that no matter how much bumping of the carriages there may be, it cannot be freed from the shackle without the intervention of the lever, and the combination therefore forms a perfectly safe and reliable coupling. In fact, the whole train could be coupled up automatically, and the engaged hook and shackle then constitute a locking apparatus which prevents the carriages becoming accidentally detached. The coupling can, moreover, be used on any kind of railway vehicle, and it is of no moment if the couplings are not all on the same level, as the higher shackle will always travel up the lower one and engage with the hook of the latter. The apparatus has been examined and the trucks fitted with it have been severely tested by General Hutchinson and Major Marindin, of the Board of Trade, who have given it their united approval. It certainly appears to be well fitted to supersede the ordinary coupling, which has cost so many lives.

CHARLES DICKENS AT WORK.

An unpretentious volume entitled _Charles Dickens_ has been issued in the ‘World’s Workers’ series (Cassell & Co.), written by the eldest daughter of the great novelist. It is simply and pleasantly compiled, and though it may be read through at a sitting, it gives a good idea as to what manner of man Dickens was, and how he lived, talked, wrote, and spoke. As Forster’s Life of Dickens is beyond the reach of many, this book, which has been specially written for the young, will form a good introduction to his writings, of which there is a complete summary at the end of the volume. It forms an affectionate tribute from a daughter to a father, and, as was to be expected, exhibits the more human side of his character. A sketch of his demeanour in his study, as witnessed by one of his daughters, who had been taken there after an illness, will have the charm of novelty to many people. ‘For a long time there was no sound but the rapid moving of his pen on the paper; then suddenly he jumped up, looked at himself in the glass, rushed back to his desk, then to the glass again, when presently he turned round and faced his daughter, staring at her, but not seeing her, and talking rapidly to himself, then once more back to his desk, where he remained writing until luncheon-time.... It was wonderful to see how completely he threw himself into the character his own imagination had made, his face, indeed his whole body, changing, and he himself being lost entirely in working out his own ideas. Small wonder that his works took so much out of him, for he did literally _live_ in his books while writing them, turning his own creations into living realities, with whom he wept, and with whom he rejoiced.’

PLASTERING MADE EASY.

Architects and those interested in the erection of new houses have frequently looked upon the application of plaster as one of the greatest drawbacks of modern building, showing, besides, a marked deterioration from old plaster-work, such as that found on walls of ancient buildings, some of which, of a highly decorative character, may still be found almost as sound as when first executed. In Hardwick Old Hall, Derbyshire, though roof and floor are gone, the decorative friezes still remain in wonderful preservation. Many ancient manor-houses and farm-buildings show specimens of fine and enduring plaster-work.

A new cement has been invented, and patented, which appears to have the qualities of both cement and plaster, and greatly simplifies the process. The patentees are Joseph Robinson & Co., of the Knothill Cement and Plaster Works, near Carlisle, who have been engaged in the manufacture of plaster for the past sixty years. From the almost inexhaustible products of their alabaster quarries in Inglewood Forest, this new cement is made. It is claimed for it that, while being equal to the Keene’s and Parian cements now in use, it is cheap enough to be used as they are, and also as a substitute for ordinary plastering.

In the erection of new buildings, the plasterer’s pit takes up much room, and is often looked upon as a necessary evil. In putting on the common three coats of plaster, the second and third can only be laid on when that before it is sufficiently dry. Owing to the unequal shrinkage of the different materials, it is often an uncertain method of doing good work. When using the cement we speak of, the plasterers can be put into a room with the requisite quantities of sand and cement, and work straight away. There is no delay required for drying, for as fast as one coat is done, the finishing coat can be run on and the whole completed. It has the merit, also, of neither shrinking nor expanding, is impervious to absorption and infection, and its hard surface affords facilities for washing or taking on paint.

As to its fire-resisting qualities, Captain Shaw, of the Metropolitan Fire Brigade, is of opinion that it ‘would be much more effectual in preventing the spread of fire than any other of the common plasters or cements generally used in this country.’

AT WAKING.

I bore dead Love unto his grave,
Beneath a willow, in winter’s rain,
Where he might feel the branches wave,
And hear me, if he woke again.

One withered rose-tree on his tomb
I planted, so that, by-and-by,
If he should wake, the rose might bloom,
And I should know, and hear him cry.

I decked his breast with rosemary,
Laid on his lips one violet,
That once he kissed; I think if he
Should wake, he will not quite forget.

I set a crown about his brow,
The crown affection weaves and wears;
At waking, he will hardly know,
I fear, whose diadem he shares.

I placed a lily in his hand—
Sceptre of his dead sovereignty;
At waking, will he understand
_Who_ placed it there, to bloom or die?

I laid my heart, that for his sake
Remembers now no old sweet strain,
Close to his ear; he, if he wake,
Perchance may tune its strings again.

If he should wake! Till death be dead,
Till life begin, and sleep be past,
Till on his breast he lay thy head,
And flowers begin to bloom at last—

O soul, remember! lest by thee
That unknown sweetness be forgot
Which now thou lookest for, and he
Bid thee ‘Depart! I know thee not.’

SIDNEY R. THOMPSON.

* * * * *

Printed and Published by W. & R. CHAMBERS, 47 Paternoster Row, LONDON, and 339 High Street, EDINBURGH.

* * * * *

_All Rights Reserved._