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palm of her hand against the stick and turned toward her. She takes care to place her hand as far as possible from the hands of the two men, so as to give herself a certain leverage. She then begins to slide her hand along the stick, gently at first, and then with an increasing pressure, as if she wished to better the contact between the stick and her hand. She thus moves it from the perpendicular and asks the two men to hold it in a vertical position.

This they do under very disadvantageous conditions, seeing the difference in the length of the arms of the lever. The stress exerted by the girl is very feeble, because, on the one hand, she has the lever arm to herself, and, on the other, the action upon her lever arm is a simple traction. When she feels that the pressure exerted is great enough, she directs the two men to exert a vertical stress strong enough to cause the stick to descend. They then imagine that they are exerting a vertical stress, while in reality their stresses are horizontal and tend to keep the stick in a vertical position in order to react against the pressure exerted at the lower end of the stick.