“Nevertheless, Corry, he was no doubt right, and you were wrong in your scepticism.  What are called mountain cork and mountain leather are forms of asbestos.  They are of no use, unless it be for the lining of safes.  The fibrous asbestos can be made into fire-proof clothes.”

“So, old Leather Corks had the laugh on me there!  Dad, I’ll apologize for sending him to the marines next time he comes in.  What a thing it is to have the larnin’ like you, Wilks!”

“A mere mineralogical trifle, my dear Corry, nothing more.”

“Wilks, do you mind the ‘Fisher’s Song,’ composed by the late Mr. William Bass, that’s in the ‘Complete Angler’?  I don’t suppose it would scare the fish much.  It goes to the tune of ’The Pope, he leads a happy life,’ like this:—­

     Of recreation there is none
     So free as fishing is alone;
     All other pastimes do no less
     Than mind and body both possess;
       My hand alone my work can do,
       So I can fish and study too.

     I care not, I, to fish in seas—­
     Fresh rivers best my mind do please,
     Whose sweet calm course I contemplate,
     And seek in life to imitate: 
       In civil bounds I fain would keep,
       And for my past offences weep.

     And when the timorous trout I wait
     To take, and he devours my bait. 
     How poor a thing, sometimes I find,
     Will captivate a greedy mind;
       And when none bite, I praise the wise,
       Whom vain allurements ne’er surprise.

     But yet, though while I fish I fast,
     I make good fortune my repast;
     And thereunto my friend invite,
     In whom I more than that delight: 
       Who is more welcome to my dish
       Than to my angle was my fish.”

“Well done, Corry—­a very good song and very well sung,

     Jolly companions every one.

Why will these wretched rhymsters couple such words as sung and one?  It is like near and tears in the American war-song, ‘The Old Camp-Ground.’  Some people are like these fish; they have no ear at all.  A practical joker, like you, Corry, once corrected a young lady who was singing:—­

     Golden years ago,
     In a mill beside the sea,
     There dwelt a little maiden,
     Who plighted her troth to me.

He suggested Floss for sea, because of George Eliot’s Mill on the Floss, and, you would hardly believe it, did I not vouch for its truth, she actually rhymed Floss and me.  It was excruciating.”

“I can beat that, Wilks.  I was out in the country on business, and stopped at our client’s house, a farmer he was.  The man that led the music in his church, an old Yank, who drawled out his words in singing, like sweeowtest for sweetest, was teaching the farmer’s daughter to play the organ.  He offered to sing for my benefit, in an informal way, one of my national melodies; and he did.  It was ’The harp that once through Tara’s halls,’ and—­O Wilks—­he sang it to a tune called Ortonville, an awful whining, jog-trot, Methodistical thing with a repeat.  My client asked me privately what I thought of it, and I told him that, if Mr. Sprague had said he was going to sing it in an infernal way, he would have been nearer the truth.”