to his grasp on the cylinder, exactly as the inventive philosopher had
stated to be the due result of the experiment.

I was startled.

"But how came you, Mr. Margrave, to be so well acquainted with a
scientific process little known, and but recently discovered?"

"I well acquainted! not so. But I am fond of all experiments that relate
to animal life. Electricity, especially, is full of interest."

On that I drew him out (as I thought), and he talked volubly. I was
amazed to find this young man, in whose brain I had conceived thought kept
one careless holiday, was evidently familiar with the physical sciences,
and especially with chemistry, which was my own study by predilection.
But never had I met with a student in whom a knowledge so extensive was
mixed up with notions so obsolete or so crotchety. In one sentence he
showed that he had mastered some late discovery by Faraday or Liebig; in
the next sentence he was talking the wild fallacies of Cardan or Van
Helmont. I burst out laughing at some paradox about sympathetic powders,
which he enounced as if it were a recognized truth.

"Pray tell me," said I, "who was your master in physics; for a cleverer
pupil never had a more crack-brained teacher."

"No," he answered, with his merry laugh, "it is not the teacher's fault.
I am a mere parrot; just cry out a few scraps of learning picked up here
and there. But, however, I am fond of all researches into Nature; all
guesses at her riddles. To tell you the truth, one reason why I have
taken to you so heartily is not only that your published work caught my