150 THE HIVE OF THE BEE-HUNTER. 
broad galleries of the house that contained the object 
of so much curiosity. The doors and windows were 
closed, and a suspicious look was on every thing. 
“Do they always keep a house closed up this way 
that has a piano in it?” asked Cash, mysteriously. 
“Certainly,” replied Mercer ; “ the damp would de- 
stroy its tones.” 
Repeated knocks at the doors, and finally at the 
windows, satisfied both Cash and Mercer that nobody 
was at home. In the midst of their disappointment, 
Cash discovered a singular machine at the end of the 
gallery, crossed by bars and rollers, and surmounted 
with an enormous crank. Cash approached it on tip- 
toe; he had a presentiment that he beheld the object of 
his curiosity, and as its intricate character unfolded it- 
self, he gazed with distended eyes, and asked Mercer, 
with breathless anxiety, ‘“ What that strange and in- 
comprehensible box was ?” 
Mercer turned to the thing as coolly as a north wind 
to an icicle, and said “ that was 7.” 
‘That 1r!!” exclaimed Cash, opening his eyes still 
wider; and then recovering himself, he asked to see 
‘the tones.” | 
Mercer pointed to the cross-bars and rollers. With 
trembling hands, with a resolution that would enable a 
man to be scalped without winking, Cash reached out 
his hand, and seized the handle of the crank (Cash, at 
heart, was a brave and fearless man); he gave it a turn, 
