AN UNSUCCESSFUL EXPERIMENT 149 



with a kerosene lamp burning night and day 

 underneath ; and into this box was put twenty-one 

 hen's and two owl's eggs. Patiently we waited 

 twenty-one days, and even a day over, carefully 

 keeping our light burning bright and clear the 

 whole time, the Professor even waking up in the 

 middle of the night to attend to it ; but no little 

 chirp was heard. 



The Professor took out each egg one by one 

 and opened them. 



"Well," he said, "something went wrong. It 

 was very nearly successful, for in each egg the 

 chicken is formed, quite fully, feathers and all ; but 

 when it came to the moment for breathing then 

 the arrangement must have fallen through some- 

 how." 



I suggested that perhaps, as he was only a 

 Professor of Mathematics, he did not know how to 

 make a proper incubator. 



"Oh," he said, airily, "it was the fumes of the 

 lamp that choked them. I have a good mind to 

 carry the next lot about in my pocket, and see if I 

 can hatch them myself." 



"But then," I said, "how about tennis? And 



