"Very well, Sir," said Mr. Jones, wagging his ears in token of assent; for in those days of universal education, even the muscles of the head were trained to perform functions which in former days it was only supposed possible they _might_ attain: "You are quite right, Sir,--no person of fashion ever wears any thing else now." "Oh, Edric!" cried the doctor, "I shall be ready to attend to you directly;--and so, Mrs. Celestina, you must make the soup, if you please, water-proof; and you, Mr. Crispin, must have the boots ready to dissolve, at a moment's notice. Oh, dear! oh, dear, what a perplexity I am in, my head is going just like a steam-boat, at the rate of sixty miles an hour!" "Upon my word, doctor," said Edric, looking round in dismay, "if we are to take half the things assembled here, I do not know where we shall find a balloon large enough and strong enough even to raise us from the ground." "I will show you one," replied the doctor, mysteriously; and solemnly drawing forth from his bosom a key, which appeared to have been suspended by a ribbon from his neck, he slowly opened, with great difficulty, a secret drawer in his escritoire, and produced from its inmost recesses a small bottle of Indian rubber. The gravity of the doctor's manner, and the length of time that he had employed in this operation, had excited Edric's curiosity, and he burst into a violent and uncontrollable fit of laughter when he saw the result. "What is the matter, Edric?" asked the doctor, with the utmost solemnity; "what can be the occasion of this unceremonious and ill-timed levity?" "Parturient mountains, my dear doctor," replied Edric, still laughing,--"you know the rest." "Ridicule, Edric," said the doctor gravely, "is by no means the test of truth. Fools often,--nay, generally, laugh at what they cannot understand, and when I shall have explained the motives of my conduct, I trust you will feel ashamed of your present weak and unseasonable mirth. "Caoutchouc, Edric, is a substance capable of astonishing dilation and contraction; whilst the peculiar elasticity and tenacity of its fibres give it a strength and solidity, very rare in bodies when in a state of extreme tension. There are several very extraordinary phenomena relating to elastic bodies, which I am happy to have an apposite opportunity of explaining to you." (Edric yawned.) "You know, elastic substances have the power of wonderfully resisting a force which would annihilate solids, apparently infinitely stronger than themselves, as a feather-bed will repulse a cannon-ball that would penetrate with ease through a thick table. Now the reason for this is clear: the elastic body has the power of summoning all its forces to its assistance, for the effect of a blow may be traced even to its remotest extremity; whereas the solid substance can only oppose its enemy by the mere resistance of the identical part struck." "Certainly," said Edric, striving to suppress a yawn; "nothing can be more clear."