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[Garoutte <jou...@mo...>]

 a gas-burner from which she had removed the globe. Mr. Chamberlain,
with his nervous temperament, produced a spark an inch long out of
himself, and of course the gas flared up immediately. I do not think
that I had ever seen any one more surprised. This power of generating
static electricity from their own bodies was naturally a source of
immense delight to the Lansdowne children. They loved, after shuffling
their feet on the carpet, to creep up to any adult relation and touch
them lightly on the ear, a most sensitive spot. There would be a little
spark, a little shock, and a little exclamation of surprise. Outside the
children's schoolroom there was a lobby warmed by a stove, and the air
there was peculiarly dry. The young people, with a dozen or so of their
youthful friends, would join hands, taking, however, care not to
complete the circle, and then shuffle their feet vigorously. On
completing the circuit, they could produce a combined spark over two
inches long, with a correspondingly sharp shock. In my bedroom at Ottawa
there was an old-fashioned high brass fender. Had I put on slippers, and
have attempted to warm myself at the fire previous to turning-in. I
should be reminded, by a sharp discharge from my protesting calves into
the metal fender, that I was in dry Canada. (At that date the dryness of
Canada was atmospherical only.) Curiously enough, a spark leaving the
body produces the same shock as one entering it, and no electricity
whatever can be generated with bare feet. One of the footmen at Ottawa
must have been an abnormally high-strung young man, for should one
inadvertently touch silver dinner-plate he handed one, a sharp electric
shock resulted. The children delighted in one very pretty experiment.
Many books for the young have their bindings plentifully adorned with
gold, notably the French series, the "Bibliotheque Rose." Should one of
these highly-gilt volumes be taken into a warm and dry place, a