“Look out, Tom!” Harry was just shouting, when the staff broke at the bottom and fell, with its human burden, right across the side of the tower which faced the people below. I remember--indeed, shall I ever forget?--the glimpse that I got of the gardener’s face as the top of the pole flashed over the parapet. He was pale as death, and seemed, as he passed through the air, already to taste the bitterness of death. It was truly an awful moment! We three at the foot of the pole mechanically clung to it, with the result that our combined weight kept the staff from going right over the parapet. For a few seconds the catastrophe took the shape of a terrible game of seesaw, Cartwright, with the majority of the staff, hanging over the parapet, and ourselves, with little more than the stem of the pole, balancing it down on our side. Meanwhile, the gardener, with wonderful nerve and strength, clung to his frail support. First the staff went down on his side, and we went up in the air. Then, as our combined weight altered our position, Harry got one foot into the trap, with the result that the gardener was poised in the air and held there simply by the strength of Harry’s leg. Cartwright grasped the situation in a moment, and, with a shout to Harry to keep the pole in that position, came down the staff hand over hand till he reached the parapet, when he slid onto the leaden roof and sank down in a dead faint. Instantly we pulled up the staff amid a tremendous yell of relief from the people below. Two minutes later Mr. Grafton and a dozen of his neighbors were by our side, some attending to Cartwright, and some to little Jack, who had also fainted with fright. Thus did a boyish freak almost end in a terrible tragedy. SWISS WATCH SCHOOLS. The famous Swiss watch schools are the most exacting industrial institutions in the world. Their methods, which are doubtless the secret of their success, are very curious and interesting. In one of the most celebrated of these institutions in Geneva, for example, a boy must first of all be at least fourteen years of age in order to enter. After being admitted, the student is first introduced to a wood-turning lathe, and put it work at turning tool handles. This exercise lasts for several weeks, according to the beginner’s aptitude. This is followed by exercises in filing and shaping screw drivers and small tools. In this way he learns to make for himself a fairly complete set of tools. He next undertakes to make a large wooden pattern of a watch frame, perhaps a foot in diameter, and, after learning how this frame is to be shaped, he is given a ready-cut one of brass, of the ordinary size, in which he is taught to drill holes for the wheels and screws. Throughout this instruction the master stands over the pupil, directing him with the greatest care.