"I don't know _that_ either," replied the doctor, musingly. His design had been all along to confer sufficient obligation on Titmouse, to induce him to lend the doctor a sum of four or five hundred pounds to embark in some wild scheme or other, and also to make Titmouse useful to him for other purposes, from time to time.--"As you are so young," continued the doctor, "I am afraid it will be necessary in some sort of way to give you a kind of scientific pretension--ah, by Archimedes! but I have it!--I have it!--You see, I've a treatise in the press, and nearly ready for publication, upon a particularly profound subject--but, you'll understand me, explained in a perfectly popular manner--in fact, my dear sir, it is a grand discovery of my own, which will in future ages be placed side by side of that of Sir Isaac Newton"---- "Is _he_ a member of it too?" inquired Titmouse. "No, my dear sir!" quoth the doctor, slightly staggered: "not bodily; but his _spirit_ is with us! We feel it influencing all our deliberations; though he died a quarter of a century before we were established! But to return to the _discovery_ I was mentioning; as Sir Isaac discovered the principle of GRAVITATION, (otherwise weight, or heaviness,) so, Mr. Titmouse, I have discovered the principle of LIGHTNESS!" "You don't say so! 'Pon my life, amazing!" exclaimed Mr. Titmouse. "And equally true, as amazing. As soon as I shall have indicated its tendencies and results, my discovery will effect a revolution in the existing system of physical science." "Ah! that's what they talked about in the House last night--_Revolution_. 'Pon my soul, I don't like revolutions though--Folks _fight_ then--eh?" exclaimed Titmouse, uneasily. "I am speaking of something quite different, my dear Titmouse," said Dr. Gander, with a slight appearance of pique; "but to proceed with what I had intended. Since I have been sitting here, my dear sir, it has occurred to me that I have an excellent opportunity of evincing my sense of your kindness towards me, and my appreciation of your distinguished position--Sir, I intend to DEDICATE my work to you!" "Sir, you're amazing kind--most uncommon polite!" quoth Titmouse, who had not the slightest notion of what a "dedication" meant.--Within a week or two's time, sure enough, appeared a handsome octavo volume, beautifully printed and splendidly bound, entitled, "RESEARCHES into _Physical Science_, with a view to the Establishment of a NEW PRINCIPLE-- LIGHTNESS. BY DIABOLUS GANDER, ESQUIRE, LL.D.; F. C. S.; Q. U. A. K.; G. Ö. S.; Secretary of the _Empirical Society_; Corresponding Member of the _Leipzic Longitude Society_; Vice-President of the _Peripatetic Gastronomic Association_; and Member of Seventeen Philosophical and Literary Societies in Kamschatka, Madagascar, Tartary, and Little Britain; &c. &c. &c."