the last moment; the effect is materially
increased by the adaptation of the action of the
weights to tune; the whole exhibition is marred.
If any lady or gentleman present would; there
is a piano in the room; they would confer a
great obligation. Perhaps some lady or gentleman
would;" and the wretched Professor looks
helplessly and hopelessly from one unpromising face
to another, and the bathing-machine boys
wriggle uneasily on their form, as if they thought
they were being personally alluded to. There
is a great pause.

"If any lady or gentleman would play any
little tune, it would add to the interest of the
performance," remarked the Professor.

"What sort of a tune?" said a tall man,
standing in a dark part of the room, and leaning
against the wall.

"Any tune in the world," said the Professor.

"Home, sweet home?" inquired the tall man.

The Professor, after consulting the Magnet,
and after much argument in an under tone, says
that the Magnet would prefer a Polka. But
it would appear that the tall man does not know
any other, for he remains immovable against the
wall. There is another pause.

"If no lady or gentleman will oblige us," says
the Professor, " we must do as well as we can
without. The exhibition will now proceed."

More tipping up of one end of the flat-irons.
At length the Magnet, who seems inclined to
laugh, whispers to the Professor. He leans
over with his knuckles upon the table, and
smiles in a sickly manner upon the audience.

"Perhaps some lady or gentleman would like
to feel the weight of the irons, or to endeavour
to raise them as done by the infant Magnet."

Silence and inaction on the part of t he audience,
each member of which seems to think that
his neighbour is being addressed.

"It will materially increase the effect, if any
lady or gentleman would try," says the hapless
Professor. After which there occurs the longest
silence of all, which is broken by an explosion
of laughter coming from one of the bathing-
machine boys, who is promptly turned out.
After this there is more whispering between the
Professor and the Magnet, and then the lecturer,
leaning again with his knuckles on the table,
and again regarding the public with a sickly
smile, says once more:

"It will materially increase the effect of the
performance if any lady or gentleman will kindly
favour us with the loan of a watch."

Assuredly this is an exhibition in which the
audience is expected to contribute largely to its
own amusement. There is by no means that
alacrity to answer this last appeal that
might have been expected; but, at length a
noble and public-spirited Frenchman (the same
that bathes daily with his wife and family all
in rose-coloured dresses) is pushed forward by
his wife, and, with agony depicted in every
feature, tenders his watch to the Professor.

The goose is again tipped up and the watch
placed, to the increased anguish of the French
gentleman, where the end of the iron would fall
if allowed to descend. The iron is suffered to
drop again till it nearly touches the watch-
glass, and is then canted back again.

"Aie!" cries the proprietor of the rose-
coloured bathing-dress, snatching his watch up
again and putting it in his pocket; " enough for
me." Nor will all the persuasions of his better
half, with whom he carries on a long and brisk
argument in their native tongue, persuade him
to risk his timepiece again. The Professor,
during this discussion, looks on with a smile of
proprietorship, as if it was part of the
entertainment, and it being impossible to eke out the
time any longer, it is now announced that
Master Raphael (the rigidly disposed young
gentleman) will promptly make his appearance.

His appearance was that of an ill-looking
youngster, about sixteen or seventeen, short of
his age, but tough and strongly built. The
flat-irons and the dressing-table being removed,
this young gentleman placed himself in the
middle of the room, standing in the attitude of
the genteel beggars who on Saturday night
place themselves by the side of the kerb-stone
with a box of lucifer-matches in their hands,
and looking down at the pavement. The Infant
Magnet then proceeded to make the mesmeric
passes, as if she were draping him with
magnetism from the head to the feet, and wrapping
these last up with especial care in the mesmeric
garment, the Professor standing all the time
with his arms extended in an expectant "pose,"
and ready to catch our young friend as soon as
he should go off.

Very soon and very suddenly he does go off,
tumbling all stiff and straight into the
Professor's arms, who, propping him from behind,
invites the audience to come and test for
themselves the rigidity of his limbs in any way they
think proper. They think proper to answer
to this appeal very readily, and (especially the
bathing-machine boys) to pinch the calves, to
wrench the jaw, to grasp the throat, and to tug
generally at the limbs of Master Raphael in a
very edifying manner. While all this was going
on, a member of the company with whom your
Eye-witness happened to be acquainted,
suddenly pulled the boy's clasped hands asunder,
the firm locking together of these being one of
the principal evidences of the lad's general
rigidity. He who had thus succeeded in
invalidating this test now called the attention of the
Professor to what had happened.

"That-er-er-signifies-er-nothing," was the
unanswerable explanation of this truly great man.
As for the boy, he quietly and scientifically joined
his hands together again as soon as they were
liberated—just as if he had been conscious.
Perhaps he was.

Our young friend was next placed on his back
with his head and shoulders supported by one
chair, and his heels and part of his legs by
another. The Infant Magnet and the Professor
then stood upon him, making a united weight of
probably some seventeen stone. If no part of
the boy but the back of his head and the
extremities of his heels had rested upon the chairs