“That is a popular error, my dear; the fact is, that their feet are provided with little cups, or suckers, which they alternately exhaust and fill with air; by which means they are enabled to walk in every position, over the most slippery surfaces.(28) In like manner, the walrus, or seal, a painting of which you may remember to have seen in the Panorama of Spitzbergen, is capable of climbing the masses of slippery ice with perfect security.” At this moment, Tom’s stone fell from the sucker. Louisa enquired how it could have happened. “The circumstance is to be easily explained,” said her father. “The atmosphere, by its pressure, ultimately forced its way through the edges of the sucker; its interior, therefore, became filled with air, and it consequently balanced the external weight, which had before confined it.” “I think,” said the vicar, “that Tom must now surely understand the theory of the leathern sucker; what say you, my boy? Cannot you exclaim with Persius, ‘_Intus_ et in _cute_ novi.’” “Which I suppose,” observed Mr. Seymour, “you would construe, ‘Well do I know the nature of the _cavity_, and the operation of the _leather_.’” “Exactly,” answered the vicar. “Then never more protest against the vice of punning, for a more atrocious specimen of the _lusus verborum_ was never sported by the most incorrigible Johnian: but, to your classical fancy, any object enclosed in a Latin shrine appears as a deity.” The vicar had just drawn up his person into a suitable attitude for combat, and would, no doubt, have defended himself against this unexpected attack with his usual address, had not a circumstance occurred, which put an abrupt termination to the discourse. “See! see!” exclaimed Louisa; “what can have happened? There is Jerry Styles, with a crowd of villagers, running towards us in the greatest state of agitation and alarm.” “Jerry Styles? It is, indeed, as you say, my faithful clerk,” cried the vicar. “Bless me,--bless me, what can have happened! Is the vicarage on fire? Has the old roof at last tumbled into the chancel?” “Oh, sir!--oh, my dear sir!” vociferated the terrified servant of the church, whose blanched cheeks made his red nose appear like a volcano burning amidst a desert of snows, “poor Tom Plank has blown the roof off his house, and is so dreadfully wounded that it is impossible for him to survive long, if, indeed, he is not already dead.” “How did it happen?” exclaimed several voices. “From a _speriment_! a _speriment_! it all came from a _flossical speriment_!” replied the breathless clerk; “but, pray, gentlemen, come directly to the village; for mercy’s sake, gentlemen, don’t delay a moment.”