Presently, however, my ideas became more serious; and at last so serious that they brought about a reaction in the shape of a suspicion that perhaps I had been making too much out of the incident, after all. So I determined to get Mr. Young's opinion on the subject, if I could; and was just framing my first interrogatory, when the telephone rang. "Claflin National?" said the voice. "Yes." "The cashier in? Young, isn't it?" "Yes. Yes, he's in." "See him a moment?" "Yes." I was certain that the voice did not belong to any of the bank employees in town; and yet it was familiar. "Someone to see you, sir," I said, trying all the while to place the voice; and then, the resemblance suddenly dawning on me, "Is Spencer John's family physician?" "Yes. Why?" and the cashier started. "I think it's he at the 'phone." The cashier was in the telephone closet almost five minutes. When he came out he was white, and it was plain he had been undergoing very strong emotions, though the worst of them was evidently passed. He began hurriedly gathering his notes together. "Put up your work, Jim," he said. "We must lock up as soon as possible. John's baby's dead." The news hardly took me by surprise. I foresaw from the first that it was something pretty bad. So I simply commenced doing as I was told. "He wants me to tell him," began the cashier after a moment. "The doctor?" "Yes, and," looking at the clock, "he'll be back any minute now, and, perhaps, Jim——" "I'd best be going?" "Yes. I'll fix up, and—My God, it's sad!—and be down early to-morrow, Jim." "John won't be here, I suppose." "I hope not; but there's no telling. At any rate he won't—hustle—to-morrow as—he did to-day. I was thinking of that." So, as I left the bank, I found that the question I was going to put the cashier as the telephone rang, had been answered, after all. [Illustration] [Illustration: A Stork's Nest, Dordrecht, Holland—12-inch Lens.] [Illustration: Stork's Nest—Telephoto Lens.] TELEPHOTOGRAPHY By Dwight L. Elmendorf ILLUSTRATED BY THE AUTHOR'S PHOTOGRAPHS Just when the telescope was invented is not known, but it is certain that Galileo was the first to direct his toward the heavens early in the seventeenth century. His instrument consisted of a long tube with a convex lens at one end and a concave ocular at the other. A modified form of this instrument still obtains in the ordinary opera and field glasses, which are binocular Galilean telescopes; and a single barrel of a field-glass is practically the telephoto lens of to-day.