Chatterbox, 1906 Part 92

This raft, although it has been seen many times by travellers, is so frail that it cannot be preserved, and has never yet been drawn by an artist, so that we can only show the fish that makes it.

W. P. PYCRAFT, F.Z.S., A.L.S.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Fast asleep!"]

THE POLICEMAN'S JOKE.

It was a bitterly cold night, but Jones, the watchman at the hole which was being dug in the street at Armstrong Square, knew how to take care of himself. 'I do not mean to freeze if I can help it!' he remarked to his friend, the policeman, who was going round the square on his beat.

'Don't make yourself too comfortable, that's all,' said the policeman, in a warning voice, as he saw Jones settle himself snugly in his rough shelter with a big c.o.ke fire in front of him and a thick sack over his knees. 'Maybe, if you fall asleep, you will wake up to find that some rascal has made off with all the spades and pickaxes, and then your job will be some one else's.'

'No fear!' said Jones, putting some fresh lumps of coal on to the tripod fire. 'If I should drop off (and I shan't!), I am a very light sleeper; the least step wakes me, and then my dog will let no one come near the place. Oh, I am all right, and as warm as toast!

'That's more than I can say!' said the policeman, for he had no warm shed to protect him from the keen east wind. 'Well, good-night--and good-night, Jack,' he added, stooping to pat the dog, who was Jones's close friend and companion.

'Ah, he knows you!' remarked Jones, as the dog rubbed his head against the policeman's legs; 'but he can be a bit nasty to strangers, Jack can.'

'I dare say he can,' was the policeman's answer as he went off, and disappeared into the darkness.

In an hour's time he was round again, and stood awhile at the corner of the square. The tripod fire was burning as fiercely as ever, and gave light enough to show Jones--fast asleep! Jack, however, was awake, and stood there, with bristling hair, ready to guard his master.

'Good old Jack!' said the policeman, as he patted the dog's head, and Jack yawned, stretched his legs, and lay down again.

'And he calls himself a light sleeper!' said the policeman, looking at the snoring Jones, who leant back with his arms folded, and his eyes shut.

'It would be a bit of a joke to make off with his lantern and ropes,'

said the policeman to himself; 'it might teach him not to be so b.u.mptious about his light sleeping.'

The idea was irresistible, for the policeman was young, and loved a joke. 'I'll do it!' he said at last, and, as he spoke, he went towards Jones's shelter. Jack--faithful Jack--looked up suspiciously, but the policeman said, briskly, 'It's all right, Jack; your master knows me'--and Jack lay down again, feeling perhaps that a policeman could do no harm.

The next time the policeman pa.s.sed the square he roused the still-sleeping Jones. 'Wake up, Jones,' he said; 'the men will be here directly, and they must not find you sleeping.'

'I only just closed my eyes,' said Jones, drowsily. He sat up, however, and the next minute exclaimed loudly: 'Hallo! who has been here?

Thieves! my lantern is gone and the coil of new rope! I'm ruined, I tell you! I shall never get another night job!'

'Gone?' said the policeman, feigning astonishment. 'Surely not. You are too light a sleeper for any one to take your things without you knowing it, you know.'

'I'm ruined!' repeated the wretched Jones.

'Here, I will have a look with my bull's-eye,' said the policeman, thinking the joke had gone far enough. 'Why, here's the lantern--oh! and the rope, too--hid under these planks,' he called out, after a minute's search.

'Found?' said Jones, joyfully. 'I am glad! I will never sleep at my post again! Don't you let out a word of this, constable,' he said anxiously.

'Not I,' said the policeman, firmly; and he kept his word, for he did not wish his joke to get to the inspector's ears.

A TURKEY'S COSTLY DIET.

At a dinner given by a wealthy Was.h.i.+ngton lady, it is said, a turkey, fattened on pearls valued at over two hundred guineas, was served. Some little time before, the hostess lost a valuable brooch and a pair of earrings set with pearls. After a long search, the missing articles were found in the garden, but the pearls had been plucked out. She was convinced that a pet turkey was the culprit, and the bird was killed, but no trace of the gems was found. A chemist, who made an examination, declared that the pearls had been dissolved almost immediately after they had been swallowed. To commemorate the loss a dinner was arranged, and each guest received a photograph of the famous turkey.

THE STORY OF ROCK-SALT.

Salt under ground! It seems a strange thing, at first, to find salt amongst the rocks, deep down in the earth. What does rock-salt tell us?

It reveals to us a place where once a sea existed; the water has since flowed away, leaving some salt behind. We know that ordinary salt exposed to the air soon gets damp, and then becomes quite fluid, but rock-salt away from air and sun keeps firm for ages. Rock-salt is found in various layers of the earth's crust. Some of the s.p.a.ces of underground water are called 'seas,' but in fact, large as they were, they often did not resemble the 'seas' we have now, because they were much shallower. A few were fairly deep, however. Then, again, these ancient seas were sometimes so salt that no animal could live in them, and only a few plants. Such seas, in fact, were mostly 'dead,' and this accounts for the ma.s.ses of salt deposited along their bottoms. But we find also signs of rough water in the numerous pebbles of the layer where the salt is found amongst hard red gravel and brown quartz.

Germany once had a tolerably deep sea, not very salt, and the bottom surface of it shows coral reefs. There are signs in it of great fishes armed with strong teeth, enabling them to crush the sh.e.l.l-fish upon which they fed. These swarmed below the sea in thousands. North England and the Midlands have the Kemper beds, where the 'seas' were always shallow, and where we can trace the marks of rain-drop filterings and sun-cracks. The rock-salt is often in a layer one hundred feet thick. It is supposed that one part of these seas was separated from another part by a bar of sand, over which the waves toppled only now and then. In the cut-off sea, evaporation went on through the ages, and of course a deposit of salt was formed, while the occasional overflow from outside replaced the water which had evaporated. But really this is not known for certain. It is only clear rock-salt contains the minerals we find in our present sea-water, bromine, iodine, and magnesia.

Generally, this salt is not mixed with fragments of a different substance, but is in columns of rough crystals. Now and then there is found a layer of rock-salt, with one of marl and sh.e.l.ls under it, succeeded by rock-salt again, showing that for a time a change had taken place.

Rock-salt sometimes melts a little under the earth, and if that happens, the rocks above it sink, and in that way hollows have been formed.

Upon the land near these shallow salt seas lived some singular animals, unlike those of our earth in the later centuries of its history. There were remarkable reptiles belonging to the frog or Batrachian family. One of the species was the size of a small ox, with peculiar complicated teeth, and feet which left prints on the earth so exactly like the impressions of the human hand, that geologists gave it a Latin name meaning 'the beast with the hand.' Another strange creature was a sort of lizard, with a h.o.r.n.y bill, and feet resembling those of the duck; it had somewhat the appearance of a turtle, it is supposed. Then there were some warm-blooded animals about the size of a rat, which had pouches in their cheeks, and preyed upon small insects.

PING-KWE'S DOWNFALL.

It was Ping-Kwe's fondness for a river excursion, combined with the fact of his possessing a very hasty temper, which led to his downfall. It happened in this wise.

One day it chanced that he was in a particularly bad frame of mind; he quarrelled with his wife, he heat his two little yellow-faced bairns, and after doing all that was possible to promote discord in his household, he started off on one of his favourite river trips, instead of going back to his work.

The cool, sweet evening air might perhaps have done something towards chasing Ping-Kwe's evil humour away, but alas! under the canopy of the boat, within which he seated himself, he saw two English ladies, the wife and sister of the British Consul in the district. Now Ping-Kwe hated the English like poison and he thereupon began a tirade against all foreigners, making use of as many English words as he could, for the benefit of the two ladies.

Fortunately, his knowledge of the English language was limited, or Mrs.

Armstrong and Miss Heathcote might have been more alarmed than they already were at his storm of abuse.

'What do we want with them here?' he snarled in his native tongue, 'turning the place upside down? If I had my will I would throw them all overboard.'

'Calm yourself, Ping,' said one of his fellow-townsmen, Chang by name, who was sitting near. 'Take my advice and throw something-else overboard.'

Here he laid a restraining hand on the ill-tempered Chinaman's shoulder.

'What do you mean?' was the retort.

'Your bad temper; it will be the ruin of you if you don't.'