could do nothing. I called father; he brought a crowbar and pried up the
board, then crawled under it and found the screw. I took good care not
to lose it a second time.

"The instrument was fairly mounted when the clouds mounted to keep it
company, and the comet and I again parted.

"In all observations, the blowing out of a light by a gust of wind is a
very common and very annoying accident; but I once met with a much worse
one, for I dropped a chronometer, and it rolled out of its box on to the
ground. We picked it up in a great panic, but it had not even altered
its rate, as we found by later observations.

"The glaring eyes of the cat, who nightly visited me, were at one time
very annoying, and a man who climbed up a fence and spoke to me, in the
stillness of the small hours, fairly shook not only my equanimity, but
the pencil which I held in my hand. He was quite innocent of any
intention to do me harm, but he gave me a great fright.

"The spiders and bugs which swarm in my observing-houses I have rather
an attachment for, but they must not crawl over my recording-paper. Rats
are my abhorrence, and I learned with pleasure that some poison had been
placed under the transit-house.

"One gets attached (if the term may be used) to certain midnight
apparitions. The Aurora Borealis is always a pleasant companion; a
meteor seems to come like a messenger from departed spirits; and the
blossoming of trees in the moonlight becomes a sight looked for with
pleasure.