You placed it by your side when you went to bed, and, at the hour desired, a peal aroused the sleeper, while, at the same time, a ready lighted candle came out from a small box. I was the prouder of this invention and its success, as it was the first of my ideas which produced me any profit. This “alarum-light,” as I christened it, was so popular that, in order to satisfy the great demand for it, I was obliged to add a workshop to my rooms and hire several workmen. Encouraged by such a favorable result, I turned my attention afresh to inventions, and gave a free scope to my imagination. I succeeded in making several more toys, among which was one which my readers will probably remember to have seen in the shop-windows. It was a glass dial, mounted on a column of the same material. This “mysterious clock” (as I called it), although entirely transparent, indicated the hour with the greatest exactness, and struck, without any apparent mechanism to make it move. I also constructed several automata, such as a conjurer playing with cups, a dancer on the tight-rope, singing birds, &c. It may strike the reader that, with so many strings to my bow, and such amusing toys to make, my situation would be considerably improved, but it was not so. Each day, on the contrary, produced fresh trouble in my trade as well as in my household, and I even saw a financial crisis approaching which I found it impossible to prevent. The cause of this result was very simple. While engaged with the mechanical toys I have just mentioned, I still worked at my theatrical automata, for which my passion had been again aroused by my present labors. Like the gambler, who throws his last farthing on the board, I invested all my earnings in my theatrical preparations, hoping these would soon repay me for my sacrifices with a hundred per cent. profit. But it was fated that I should no sooner see the realization of my projects close at hand, than an unforseen event should remove it again from my grasp. I had a sum of two thousand francs to pay at the end of the month; I had not a penny to meet it, and I had only three days left before the bill I had accepted became due. Never did an embarrassment arrive more inopportunely! I had just formed the plan of an automaton in which I placed the greatest hopes. It was a “writing and drawing automaton,” answering in writing or emblematic designs questions proposed by the spectators, and I intended to employ this figure between the performances in my future theatre. Once more was I obliged to check the flight of my imagination to absorb myself in the vulgar and difficult problem of meeting a bill when you have no money. I might, it is true, have saved myself all trouble by applying to my friends, but prudence and delicacy rendered it my duty to pay it from my own resources. Providence, doubtlessly, recognized the merit of my resolution, for she sent me a saving idea.