"What about the conversational annotations?" asked Robert slyly; but he was interrupted by a storm of indignant queries, levied at the head of the poor operator, who tried in vain to carry off his mistake with a jaunty air. Now that he came to think of it, he believed you _did_ mix the two developers together! Just at the moment he had forgotten the proportions, but he would go outside and look it up in the book; and he beat a hasty retreat, glad to escape from the scene of his failure. It was rather a disconcerting beginning, but hope revived once more when Oswald returned, primed with information from the _Photographic Manual_, and Peggy's plates were taken from their case and put into the bath. This time the result was slow in coming. Five minutes went by, and no signs of a picture, ten minutes, a quarter of an hour. "It's a good thing to develop slowly; you get the details better," said Oswald, in so professional a matter that he was instantly reinstated in public confidence; but when twenty minutes had passed, he looked perturbed, and thought he would use a little more of the hastener. The bath was strengthened and strengthened, but still no signs of a picture. The plate was put away in disgust, and the second one tried with a like result. So far as it was possible to judge, there was nothing to be developed on the plate. "A nice photographer you are, I must say! What are you playing at now?" asked Max, in scornful impatience, and Oswald turned severely to Peggy-- "Which shutter did you draw out? The one nearest to yourself?" "Yes, I did--of course I did!" "You drew out the nearest to you, and the farthest away from the lens?" "Precisely--I told you so!" and Peggy bridled with an air of virtue. "Then no wonder nothing has come out! You have drawn out the wrong shutter each time, and the plates have never been exposed. They are wasted! That's fivepence simply _thrown_ away, to say nothing of the chemicals!" His air of aggrieved virtue; Peggy's little face staring at him, aghast with horror; the thought of four plates being used and leaving not a vestige of a result were all too funny to be resisted. Mellicent went off into irrepressible giggles; Max gave a loud "Ha, ha!" and once again a mischievous whisper sounded in Peggy's ear-- "Good for you, Mariquita! What about the conversational annotations?" (_To be continued._) SOME PRACTICAL HINTS ON COSMETIC MEDICINE. BY "THE NEW DOCTOR." PART IV. THE HANDS.