Harper's Round Table, May 21, 1895 Part 8

2. An article will soon be published on microphotography for amateurs. The process requires too long a description for the s.p.a.ce devoted to queries. 3. A cloudy day--not heavy clouds--is the better time for photographing monuments. A rather slow plate and a short time exposure will give better detail, and render the monument or figure with correct color value. Use orthochromatic or nonhalation plates. 4. The rapidity of the plate is marked on the box. Some brands of plates are marked with the sensitometer number, like the Stanley, Carb.u.t.t, Seed, etc., and others are marked with a letter like the Cramer. The sensitiveness of the Stanley, which is marked "Sens. 50," and the Cramer "C" plate is about equal as to rapidity. 5. If you cannot use a flash-light for the mantel, try a long exposure by lamp-light. Place the lamp, which should give a clear, brilliant light, so as to illuminate the wood-work without giving strong shadows. If one lamp is not sufficient to light the whole surface, take two, but place them so that the light from each comes from the same direction. A reflector back of the lamp helps the lighting. A shallow tin pan, if bright, makes a good reflector if the genuine article cannot be obtained.

LADY GRACE S., Vails Gate, N. Y., asks for the name of a book giving full instructions in photography for beginners. "Every camera maker furnishes with each camera sent out a book giving simple instruction for using the camera, and directions for developing plates. This would be a sufficient guide for the beginner, and if rules are followed one can obtain very good negatives. There are many books published on photography which would be helpful after a while, but the beginner will find the directions which come with the camera all that are needful at first. With this number we begin publis.h.i.+ng what will be a series of papers for beginners in photography. Technical terms will be explained, formulas for work will be given with explanations of what each chemical is expected to do. Prices of chemicals for each formula will also be added. It is intended to make these instructions as simple as possible, and if Lady Grace will watch this column she will find in it we hope just the help she needs."

OFF WITH THE MERBOY.

BY JOHN KENDRICK BANGS.

CHAPTER V.

THE WIZARD.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Decorative J]

immieboy grasped the old man's hand, and for a few moments was silent. He was so astonished that he could do nothing but gaze upon his new acquaintance in wonder. The little old man seemed very much pleased at Jimmieboy's apparent wonderment, for he smiled broadly and said,

"Thank you, sir."

"You are very welcome," murmured Jimmieboy, "but I don't know what for.

I didn't know that I had done anything for you to thank me for."

"Yes, indeed, you have," returned the little old man, letting go of Jimmieboy's hand, and dancing a lively jig upon the broad marble top of the bureau. "You have done two things. You have released me from a long imprisonment, for one thing, and for another you have looked at me in a manner which proves that you think me a most interesting person. I like freedom better than anything in the world, and next to that I like being an interesting person."

"And were you really shut up in that little drawer so that you couldn't get out?" asked Jimmieboy, beginning to feel very glad that fortune had led him that way, and so enabled him to help the little old man out of his trouble.

"Yes," answered the other. "I've been locked up in that drawer there for nearly fifty years."

"Fifty years!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Jimmieboy. "Why, that's longer than I have lived."

"No, not quite," said the little old man. "They were dream years, and a dream year isn't much longer than a day of your time; but they have seemed real years to me, and I am just as grateful to you for unlocking the drawer and letting me out as I should have been had the years been three hundred and sixty-five days long each."

"Why should any one want to lock you up in a drawer?" asked Jimmieboy.

"Were you naughty?"

"No," said the old man. "I never did a naughty thing in all my life, but they locked me up just the same--just as if I had been a poor little canary-bird."

"Who did it?" queried Jimmieboy. "They must have been very wicked people to treat you that way."

"They were. Awfully wicked," said the little old man. "They were wickeder than they seem, because really, you know, they intended that I should stay locked up there forever and ever."

"But how did they come to do it?" asked Jimmieboy.

"It's a long story," answered the little old man. "But if you want me to, I'll tell it."

"Do," said Jimmieboy.

"Very well, then, I will," said the little old man. "But not here. It is too wet here. We'll go inside the drawer ourselves, where we can be dry and comfortable, and we'll take the key in with us and lock ourselves in so that n.o.body can interfere with us. Will you come?"

"I don't see how I can," said Jimmieboy, looking down at his own body and then pointing to the drawer. "Don't you see I am two or three dozen times too big to get in there?"

"That doesn't make any difference," said the little old man with a laugh. "For I am a wizard, and I can make you large or small, just as I please. If you will say the word I'll make you so small you couldn't see yourself with a magnifying-gla.s.s."

Jimmieboy thought a moment, and concluded very wisely, I think, that he would rather not be so small as that.

"I don't like to lose sight of myself," he said.

"Very well, then," said the other. "Suppose I make you just about my size? How would that do?"

"I'd like that very much," replied Jimmieboy, kindly. "I think you are an awfully nice size."

Again the little old man smiled with pleasure. "You are the pleasantest boy I know," he said; "and you will find out before long that it is worth while to make friends with old Thumbhi, Lord High Wizard of the Sea, and Court Jester to the King of the Waves."

"Are you all that?" said Jimmieboy, pleased to discover that his new-found friend was a person of so great importance.

"Yes indeed," answered Thumbhi. "I am all that, and half a dozen things more. In fact, I am so much that if we had a million dream years together I couldn't even begin to tell you all that I am. But come. Are you ready to be made smaller?"

"Yes," said Jimmieboy, a little nervously. "What do I do first?"

"You must put on a coat I give you," replied the wizard. "It will be a little small for you, perhaps, but you can get it on."

The wizard opened one of the bureau drawers, and took therefrom a coat, in which Jimmieboy hastened to array himself. It was, as the old man had said, a little small for him, but he managed to get into it, and after wearing it a minute or two he found it quite comfortable.

"Now take it off," said the wizard, taking a second coat out of the drawer, "and put this one on."

Jimmieboy took off the coat. "Is this larger than the other?" he asked, as he began to put the second coat on.

"No; it is a trifle smaller," replied the wizard. "That's my scheme. You keep putting on coats that are smaller than the one you have just taken off. You stay in them until they fit you comfortably, and finally when you get the last one on you will be small enough to get into the drawer."

"That's a fine plan," said Jimmieboy.

Then he went through the process of changing coats, each new coat being a little smaller than the other, until he had tried on at least fifty of them, when for the first time since he began he caught sight of himself in the gla.s.s.

"My!" he cried, in pleased astonishment. "I'm hardly any bigger than you are."

"That's so," replied the little old man. "One more coat, and we can get you into the drawer."

[Ill.u.s.tration: JIMMIEBOY PUTS ON THE LAST COAT.]

Jimmieboy put on the last coat. A little bit of a thing it was, hardly larger than a doll's overcoat, and, if the truth be told, awfully tight; but, as with all the others, it soon became as comfortable as any coat he had ever worn, and then, looking at himself in the gla.s.s once more, Jimmieboy observed that he was actually no larger than Thumbhi.

"It didn't hurt much, did it?" asked Thumbhi.

"Not a bit," said Jimmieboy. "It was as easy and pleasant as could be."

"That's the great thing about my tricks," said the wizard. "They never hurt anybody. It would be a good thing if all tricks were that way.

Tricks that hurt people are mean, and I don't have anything to do with them, and if you will take my advice you won't either."