Various
Harper's Young People, December 9, 1879
"Look here," said Seppi, taking some money from his pocket. "I am going away again to-morrow morning before daybreak, and may not be back until the day after. Here is payment for our supper and night's lodging. My friend will stay here, and you must not on any account allow him to go away till I come back. Give him anything he asks for; but keep an eye on him, for he is not right in his head, and must either have some one always with him, or be locked in his room. I can't take him with me in the morning, and so I have brought him here, where I know he will be in good hands. You will promise to attend to what I have told you, André?"
"Your instructions shall be attended to," replied the other, slipping the gold coin which Seppi tendered him into his pocket. "You shall have no reason to complain."
"That's well. When I come back you shall have another gold piece if I find everything right. And look here: only bolt the outer door to-night instead of locking it, or else leave the key in the lock, so that I can get away in the morning without waking anybody."
The man promised to attend to that also, and quitted the apartment. When he was gone, Seppi bolted the room door, and gazed at his unconscious companion with a malicious scowl.
"Fool!" said he, "I made you a fair offer when I proposed to go halves with the money; but as you were idiot enough to decline, so much the better for me. When you wake in the morning you'll be sorry you let the chance slip."
"HE UNBUCKLED THE MONEY-BELT."
Thus muttering to himself, he unbuckled the money-belt that was round the waist of the sleeping man, and fastened it securely round his own. He then abstracted Walter's passport and the other papers that were in his pockets, without arousing him.
"He lies there like a dead dog," thought the drover; "and, with the dose I gave him, is not likely to trouble any one till morning."
Waiting impatiently for more than an hour, until every one was in bed and the house silent, Seppi quitted the room on tiptoe, locked the door on the outside, and crept noiselessly along the passage and down the stairs. André had not forgotten to leave the outer door unlocked, and pushing back the bolt with the greatest caution, the ruffian slipped out, and as soon as he had got clear of the village hurried away at the top of his speed.
The Swiss drover had shown great cunning in his scheme to get possession of the money from Walter, and he carried it out with equal boldness. He had often helped to drive cattle to Paris before, and knew the roads well. He had frequently been at the inn at Boissy, and its distance from Paris, and the character of the man who attended to the business, recommended it as well suited to his purpose. André, like many others of his kind, was greedy of money, and the golden bribe quieted all his doubts as to the truth of the story about his companion. Seppi, on his side, knowing that the sleeping powder which he had secretly mixed with Walter's wine was sufficient to prevent him waking for nearly a whole day, gave himself no further trouble as to what might happen in the way of pursuit. It was enough for him that his stratagem had been successful, and he hastened along the well-known by-paths until he had left Boissy far behind.
[to be continued.]
GOLD-FISH
STRANGE GOLD-FISHES.
Some time during the seventeenth century, about two hundred years ago, Portuguese sailors saw swimming in the lakes and rivers of China and Japan a very beautiful variety of fish, which glistened like gold. They captured some specimens, and brought them to Portugal. The little fish found the lakes of Europe as pleasant to live in as the lakes of China, and they at once domesticated themselves, and raised their little families, until the European streams became well stocked with these beautiful creatures. They are also found in many brooks and streams in the United States.
The glistening gold-color of these fishes made them much sought for as household ornaments, and the demand for them became so general that establishments were opened for raising them for the market. One of the largest and most celebrated of these places for gold-fish breeding is in Oldenburg, Germany, where more than a hundred small ponds contain the fish in all stages of growth, from the tiniest baby to the big stout fellow eight and even ten inches long. The little ones are carefully kept apart from larger ones, for the gold-fish is a wicked cannibal, and devours its little brothers and sisters, and even its own children, whenever it has an opportunity. At the same time it is a great coward, and will hide away from fish much smaller than itself that have the spirit to attack it. A gentleman who possessed an aquarium in which were several large gold-fish, once placed a tiny "pumpkin-seed," or sunfish, about the size of a silver half dollar, in the water. Watching anxiously to see that the gold-fish did not injure it, what was his astonishment to see the "pumpkin-seed" dart furiously at the larger fish, which huddled themselves in a corner, or scurried hastily through the water to hide among the stones and mimic grottoes of the aquarium! From that moment the "pumpkin-seed" remained lord of the field, scarcely allowing his companions to come to the surface, as they are fond of doing, or to take a mouthful of food until he had satisfied his own hunger. Finally he had to be removed from the aquarium, to save the gold-fish from dying of fright.
The enormous demand for gold-fish is shown by the fact that from the establishment at Oldenburg alone over three hundred thousand fish are sent to market every year. Their price varies according to their size and beauty, for there are grades of beauty in gold-fish as well as in all other things. They are very pretty household ornaments, and by caring for them and carefully watching their habits, boys and girls may learn their first lesson in natural history. If kept in a glass globe, nothing can be more interesting than to watch them, for, as Mr. White says, in Selborne, "The double refraction of the glass and water represents them, when moving, in a shifting and changeable variety of dimensions, shades, and colors, while the two mediums, assisted by the concavo-convex shape of the vessel, magnify and distort them vastly." Still, the fish may be healthier if kept in an aquarium, as it allows more surface to the water, and consequently more air and ventilation. In any case, fresh water should be given the fish at least every other day, and if the globe or aquarium be ornamented with rocks and water-grasses, the fish should be carefully dipped out once a week, and the rocks thoroughly cleansed from all impurities.
Although the fish draw nourishment from animalcules supplied by the water, and will live a long time without other food, it is advisable to feed them by throwing bread-crumbs, or flies and other small insects, on the surface of the water. The eagerness with which they dart for them proves them to be welcome. Care should be taken not to scatter more bread-crumbs than will be immediately eaten, for bread sours very quickly, and renders the water impure. In changing the water the fish should never be subjected to any sudden variation of temperature, as the shock produced by a violent change from water of medium temperature, which is always best, to ice-cold, might ruin the whole stock of an aquarium in an instant.
The ingenious Chinese make great pets of their gold-fish, and with patience teach them many tricks, such as eating from their hands, or rushing to be fed at the tinkle of a bell.
The gold-fish belongs to the genus Cyprinus, or the great carp family, and is sometimes called the golden carp.
THE HISTORY OF PHOTOGEN AND NYCTERIS
[Begun in No. 5 of Harper's Young People, Dec. 2]
A Day and Night Mährchen
BY GEORGE MACDONALD
VIII.—THE LAMP
Watho having given orders, took it for granted they were obeyed, and that Falca was all night long with Nycteris, whose day it was. But Falca could not get into the habit of sleeping through the day, and would often leave her alone half the night. Then it seemed to Nycteris that the white lamp was watching over her. As it was never permitted to go out—while she was awake at least—Nycteris, except by shutting her eyes, knew less about darkness than she did about light. Also, the lamp being fixed high overhead, and in the centre of everything, she did not know much about shadows either. The few there were fell almost entirely on the floor, or kept like mice about the foot of the walls.
Once, when she was thus alone, there came the noise of a far-off rumbling: she had never before heard a sound of which she did not know the origin, and here, therefore, was a new sign of something beyond these chambers. Then came a trembling, then a shaking; the lamp dropped from the ceiling to the floor with a great crash, and she felt as if both her eyes were hard shut and both her hands over them. She concluded that it was the darkness that had made the rumbling and the shaking, and rushing into the room, had thrown down the lamp. She sat trembling. The noise and the shaking ceased, but the light did not return. The darkness had eaten it up!
Her lamp gone, the desire at once awoke to get out of her prison. She scarcely knew what out meant; out of one room into another, where there was not even a dividing door, only an open arch, was all she knew of the world. But suddenly she remembered that she had heard Falca speak of the lamp going out: this must be what she had meant. And if the lamp had gone out, where had it gone? Surely where Falca went, and like her it would come again. But she could not wait. The desire to go out grew irresistible. She must follow her beautiful lamp! She must find it! She must see what it was about!
Now there was a curtain covering a recess in the wall, where some of her toys and gymnastic things were kept; and from behind that curtain Watho and Falca always appeared, and behind it they vanished. How they came out of solid wall, she had not an idea; all up to the wall was open space, and all beyond it seemed wall; but clearly the first and only thing she could do was to feel her way behind the curtain. It was so dark that a cat could not have caught the largest of mice. Nycteris could see better than any cat, but now her great eyes were not of the smallest use to her. As she went she trod upon a piece of the broken lamp. She had never worn shoes or stockings, and the fragment, though, being of soft alabaster, it did not cut, yet hurt her foot. She did not know what it was, but, as it had not been there before the darkness came, she suspected that it had to do with the lamp. She knelt, therefore, and searched with her hands, and bringing two large pieces together, recognized the shape of the lamp. Therewith it flashed upon her that the lamp was dead, that this brokenness was the death of which she had read without understanding, that the darkness had killed the lamp. What, then, could Falca have meant when she spoke of the lamp going out? There was the lamp—dead, indeed, and so changed that she would never have taken it for a lamp but for the shape. No, it was not the lamp any more now it was dead, for all that made it a lamp was gone, namely, the bright shining of it. Then it must be the shine, the light, that had gone out! That must be what Falca meant—and it must be somewhere in the other place in the wall. She started afresh after it, and groped her way to the curtain.
Now she had never in her life tried to get out, and did not know how; but instinctively she began to move her hands about over one of the walls behind the curtain, half expecting them to go into it, as she supposed Watho and Falca did. But the wall repelled her with inexorable hardness, and she turned to the one opposite. In so doing she set her foot upon an ivory die, and as it met sharply the same spot the broken alabaster had already hurt, she fell forward with her outstretched hands against the wall. Something gave way, and she tumbled out of the cavern.