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 fied in the first moment, not with the reflection of the face of this mirror, but much more with its back. By the way, I remember the numbers of those two volumes because naturally I myself sought to explain the mystery, being interested in this matter.”

“I beg of you, do not torture me any longer and explain to me what seems to be inexplicable.”

We sat down again on the flcor and he poured out tea for me, which the old servant had brought in the meantime. “Some of our old metal mirrors display interesting phenomena in the reflection they cast. Sunlight reflected from the face of such a mirror throws on a wall a luminous picture of the design executed in relief on its back. This in itself is surely a strange occurrence, and such mirrors fully deserved to be called magic. Metal, untransparent matter,—but the mirror casts on the wall the picture of its back, inaccessible to the sunlight. But Ayrton and Perry discovered what to our old mirror-makers was of course no secret. The phenomenon originates in the fact that the curvature of the surface of the mirror is greater above the flat part of the back than above the relief. The mirror, of course, was cast with a flat face, and was made slightly convex before polishing by being scratched with a special iron tool and rubbed thoroughly with mercury. The first process caused the convexity of the face, the second increased it; the effect of both these processes was greater on the thinner parts of the mirror than on those above the embossed parts of the back. Thus originated the convexity, scarcely perceptible to the casual glance but sufficient to give a reflection in sunlight with a luminous picture of the design on the back of the mirror. Do you understand?”

I reached for the mirror. “I understand, I understand it all after your explanation,” I cried impatiently, “but I do not understand how then your magic mirror can reflect a dancing figure when on its back there is nothing but this rough surface!” I trembled with fear lest his final explanation should be too matter of fact.

Silently he drew a metal rod out of the, the bronze vessel with live coals, and significantly tapped the mirror with it. It sounded hollow. And then I understood:

The back of the mirror was on the inside, and the unsightly covering was but a protection.

“Even in this there is a sort of deeper meaning, which escapes you,” my host added and sighed involuntarily, lifting to his lips a tiny tea-bowl. And I noticed that his hand quivered.