As much to please my father as to scrupulously fulfil my duties in my new office, I had promised to pay no more attention to mechanical inventions--for I feared their irresistible attraction--and I had religiously kept my word. There was, then, every reason to believe that I should pass through all my grades creditably, and some day, in my turn, become Maître Robert, solicitor, in some country town. But Providence, in her decrees, had traced out a very different route for me, and my stern resolutions were routed by a temptation too powerful for my courage. In our office there was, strangely enough, a magnificent aviary filled with canaries, whose song and plumage were intended to dispel the impatience of a client forced by some accident to wait. This cage being considered a portion of the office furniture, I was bound, as errand-boy, to keep it in a proper state of cleanliness, and provide the food of the denizens. This was the branch of my duties I performed with the greatest zeal: in fact, I bestowed so much care on the comfort and amusement of the birds, that they soon absorbed nearly all my time. I began by setting up in this cage a number of mechanical tricks I had invented at college under similar circumstances. I gradually added fresh ones, and ended by making the cage a work of art and curiosity, affording considerable attraction to our visitors. At one spot was a perch, near which the sugar and the seed-glass displayed their attractions; but no sooner had the innocent canary placed its foot on the fatal perch, than a circular cage encompassed it, and it was kept a prisoner until another bird, perching on an adjoining piece of wood, set loose a spring, which delivered the captive. At another place were baths and pumps; further on was a small trough, so arranged, that the nearer the bird seemed to draw to it the further off it really was. Lastly, each denizen of the cage was obliged to earn its food by drawing forward with its beak small pasteboards carts. The pleasure I felt in carrying out these small schemes soon made me forget I was in a lawyer’s office for any other purpose than to be at the beck and call of canaries. The chief clerk drew my attention to it, and added some just remonstrances; but I had always a protest ready, and continued making daily improvements in the aviary. At length, matters reached such a point, that the supreme authority, that is to say my master in person, felt it his duty to interfere. “Robert,” he said to me, assuming an earnest tone, which he rarely employed towards his clerks, “when you came into my office you were aware it was to devote yourself exclusively to business, and not to satisfy your own thirst for pleasure; warnings have been given you to return your duty, and you have paid no attention to them; I am, therefore, obliged to tell you that you must either decide on giving up your mechanical fancies, or I must send you home to your father.”