“His joints [i.e. the joints of the violins he makes] are the closest and neatest that were ever made.” “He always speaks of the corners of a fiddle; Haweis would call them the points. Haweis calls it the neck of a fiddle. Furber always the handle.” My cousin says he would like to take his violins to bed with him. Speaking of Strad violins Furber said: “Rough, rough linings, but they look as if they grew together.” One day my cousin called and Furber, on opening the door, before saying “How do you do?” or any word of greeting, said very quietly: “The dog is dead.” My cousin, having said what he thought sufficient, took up a violin and played a few notes. Furber evidently did not like it. Rose, the dog, was still unburied; she was laid out in that very room. My cousin stopped. Then Mrs. Furber came in. R. E. W. “I am very sorry, Mrs. Furber, to hear about Rose.” Mrs. F. “Well, yes sir. But I suppose it is all for the best.” R. E. W. “I am afraid you will miss her a great deal.” Mrs. F. “No doubt we shall, sir; but you see she is only gone a little while before us.” R. E. W. “Oh, Mrs. Furber, I hope a good long while.” Mrs. F. (brightening). “Well, yes sir, I don’t want to go just yet, though Mr. Furber does say it is a happy thing to die.” My cousin says that Furber hardly knows any one by their real name. He identifies them by some nickname in connection with the fiddles they buy from him or get him to repair, or by some personal peculiarity. “There is one man,” said my cousin, “whom he calls ‘diaphragm’ because he wanted a fiddle made with what he called a diaphragm in it. He knows Dando and Carrodus and Jenny Lind, but hardly any one else.” “Who is Dando?” said I. “Why, Dando? Not know Dando? He was George the Fourth’s music master, and is now one of the oldest members of the profession.” Window Cleaning in the British Museum Reading-Room Once a year or so the figures on the Assyrian bas-reliefs break adrift and may be seen, with their scaling ladders and all, cleaning the outside of the windows in the dome of the reading-room. It is very pretty to watch them and they would photograph beautifully. If I live to see them do it again I must certainly snapshot them. You can see them smoking and sparring, and this year they have left a little hole in the window above the clock. The Electric Light in its Infancy I heard a woman in a ’bus boring her lover about the electric light. She wanted to know this and that, and the poor lover was helpless. Then she said she wanted to know how it was regulated. At last she settled down by saying that she knew it was in its infancy. The word “infancy” seemed to have a soothing effect upon her, for she said no more but, leaning her head against her lover’s shoulder, composed herself to slumber. Fire