The stranger thereat smiled significantly, as though he could, if he felt disposed, say something to the purpose; and Mr. Stanhope felt more inclined than ever to think the landlord might have conjectured very near the truth, and consequently, redoubled his efforts to make the agreeable, professing his regret at being obliged to dine out that day, &c. The stranger politely thanked him for his polite consideration, and stated that he was never at a loss for employment, and that he was then rambling, for a few days, to relax his mind from the fatigues of an overwhelming mass of important business, to which his duty compelled him to attend early and late. “Perhaps,” he continued, “you will smile when I tell you that I am now engaged in a series of experiments relative to the power of the centrifugal force, and its capacity of overcoming various degrees of friction.” (Here he produced the teetotum.) “You perceive the different surfaces of the under edge of this little thing. The outside, you see, is all of ivory, but indented in various ways; and yet I have not been able to decide whether the roughest or smoothest more frequently arrest its motions. The colours, of course, are merely indications. Here is my register, and he produced a book, wherein divers mathematical abstruse calculations were apparent. “I always prefer other people to spin it, as then I obtain a variety of impelling power. Perhaps you will do me the favour just to twirl it round a few times alternately with the landlord? Two make a fairer experiment than one. Just for five minutes. I’ll not trouble you a moment longer, I promise you.”--“Hem!” thought Mr. Stanhope-- “Learned men, now and then, Have very strange vagaries!” However, he commenced spinning the teetotum, turn and turn with Jacob Philpot, who was highly delighted both with the drollery of the thing, and the honour of playing with the parson of the parish, and laughed most immoderately, while the stranger stood by, looking at his stop-watch as demurely as on the preceding evening, until the five minutes had expired; and then, in the middle of the Reverend Mr. Stanhope’s spin, he took up the little toy and put it into his pocket.