I counted the
days, the hours, the minutes, that intervened between that promise
and his departure.
Meantime I was not idle. Every transparent substance that bore the
remotest semblance to a lens I eagerly seized upon and employed in
vain attempts to realize that instrument, the theory of whose
construction I as yet only vaguely comprehended. All panes of glass
containing these oblate spheroidal knots familiarly known as
"bull's eyes" were ruthlessly destroyed, in the hope of obtaining
lenses of marvellous power. I even went so far as to extract the
crystalline humor from the eyes of fishes and animals, and
endeavored to press it into the microscopic service. I plead guilty
to having stolen the glasses from my Aunt Agatha's spectacles, with
a dim idea, of grinding them into lenses of wondrous magnifying
properties,--in which attempt it is scarcely necessary to say that I
totally failed.
At last the promised instrument came. It was of that order known as
Field's simple microscope, and had cost perhaps about fifteen
dollars. As far as educational purposes went, a better apparatus
could not have been selected. Accompanying it was a small treatise
on the microscope,--its history, uses, and discoveries. I
comprehended then for the first time the "Arabian Nights'
Entertainments." The dull veil of ordinary existence that hung
across the world seemed suddenly to roll away, and to lay bare a
land of enchantments.
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