The World and the University 



stood gazing in a circle around my strange 

 hickory belongings. I kept outside of the circle 

 to avoid being seen, and had the advantage of 

 hearing the remarks without being embar- 

 rassed. Almost every one as he came up would 

 say, "What's that.? What's it for? Who made 

 it.?" The landlord would answer them all alike, 

 "Why, a young man that lives out in the coun- 

 try somewhere made it, and he says it's a thing 

 for keeping time, getting up in the morning, 

 and something that I did n't understand. I 

 don't know what he meant." "Oh, no!" one of 

 the crowd would say, "that can't be. It's for 

 something else — something mysterious. Mark 

 my words, you'll see all about it in the news- 

 papers some of these days." A curious little 

 fellow came running up the street, joined the 

 crowd, stood on tiptoe to get sight of the won- 

 der, quickly made up his mind, and shouted in 

 crisp, confident, cock-crowing style, "I know 

 what that contraption's for. It's a machine for 

 taking the bones out of fish." 

 „ This was in the time of the great popular 

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