merits. Somewhat to my surprise he knew the names of most of these, and even had a crude idea of their uses.
He was wonderfully like what Henry used to be at the same age, as I discovered more and more; also, it struck me next, curiously like some young animal—yes, an intelligent young dog. He had a way of coming quite close to one's side and looking up to see the expression as though it meant more than spoken words. He stood like that now at the door of my laboratory, so near that he pressed unconsciously against me until I moved away a little. As I spoke he watched my face, the emotions changing his own as openly as the clouds passing before the sun. It would not have required a great effort to imagine him whining or pricking up his ears, and when at last I turned to go he followed me like a hungry but obedient animal slowly retiring from a butcher's shop.
"Aren't I to be allowed in there, uncle, to do things?" he asked in a low voice, a whisper indeed, when I had locked the door, and as we walked away he took my hand—or, rather, tried to take my hand—in his eagerness.
"Oh, no, Bobbie," I replied very decidedly. "It is hardly the place for little boys to amuse themselves in. Think of the things I have shown you: the spectroscope and eudiometers, the air-pumps, Crookes' different apparatuses, and the intricate balances. A touch, a thoughtless frisk, and before you remember where you are, pounds and pounds' worth of damage is done. Now if I give you a little mercuric oxide and a test-tube, wouldn't you like to make oxygen in the scullery and surprise Jane by burning iron in it?"
I do not attempt to describe the look with which my young nephew received this well-meant attempt on my part to enter into his fancy for playing at chemistry, for I am sure that it would be beyond the power of a pen
