wants to make 100. So with mirrors; it may be easy to make a little one without any mistake, but it is awfully hard to make a large one without some flaw in it which prevents it being a good mirror. The first man to get a century, so to speak, by making a really large mirror without flaw, was William Herschel, who did not begin to try until he was 37 years old. As a boy he was in the band of a Hanoverian regiment, like his father and several of his brothers. It is sad that we cannot claim Herschel as a born Englishman, but he settled in England and got a position as organist at Bath. He showed some cleverness in getting that position, but scarcely of a kind to suggest the wonderful work he was to do in astronomy afterwards. The story is that when the different candidates for the post of organist were being tried, one of them played so skilfully that a friend remarked to Herschel that it was scarcely possible to play any better. "I don't think fingers can do it," agreed Herschel. Nevertheless he went up into the organ loft and produced such astonishing effects that the judges awarded him the post. The same friend, who had shared in the general astonishment, could not help asking how in the world he had managed to play as he did; whereupon, with a twinkle in his eye, Herschel produced from his pocket two leaden discs, and said, "You remember I told you fingers alone could not beat the playing we had heard; but I put these discs, one on a low note and the other on a high note, leaving my hands free for the middle, and in that way I managed to surprise you." After all, though the trick may seem a simple one, it must have required great skill to use it to full
