Conservation of Energy 83 



Perhaps your hair was mussed before you became 

 elastic. Now it is impossible to comb it straight ; each 

 hair springs back like a fine steel wire. 



If you take a handkerchief from your pocket to wipe 

 your perspiring brow, you find that it does not stay 

 unfolded. As soon as it is spread out on your hand, it 

 snaps back to the shape and the folds it had while in 

 your pocket. 



Suppose you bounce up into an automobile for a ride. 

 The automobile, now being made elastic by your magic 

 touch, bounds up into the air at the first bump it strikes, 

 and thereafter it goes hopping down the street in a 

 most distressing manner, bouncing off the ground like 

 a rubber ball each time it comes down. And each time 

 it bumps you are thrown off the seat into the air. 



You find it hard to stay in any new position. Your 

 body always tends to snap back to the position you were 

 in when you first became elastic. If you touch a trotting 

 horse and it becomes elastic, the poor animal finds that 

 his legs always straighten out to their trotting position, 

 whether he wants to walk or stand still or lie down. 



Imagine the plight of a boy pitching a ball, or some 

 one yawning and stretching, or a clown turning a somer- 

 sault, if you touch each of these just in the act and make 

 him elastic. Their bodies always tend to snap back 

 to these positions. Whenever the clown wants to rest, 

 he has to get in the somersault position. The boy 

 pitcher sleeps in the position of " winding up " to 

 throw the ball. The one who was yawning and stretch- 

 ing has to be always on the alert, because the instant he 

 stops holding himself in some other position, his mouth 



