Page:Once a Week, Series 1, Volume II Dec 1859 to June 1860.pdf/239

226 carping, grim old gentleman—was much improved by the nearer resemblance of his manner to Andrew’s.

Behind this unaffected fraternal concord, however, the fact that they were pledged to a race in eccentricity, was present. They had been rivals before; and anterior to the date of his marriage, Andrew had done odd eclipsing things. But Andrew required prompting to it; he required to be put upon his mettle. Whereas, it was more nature with Tom: nature and the absence of a wife, gave him advantages over Andrew. Besides, he had his character to maintain. He had said the word: and the first vanity of your born eccentric is, that he shall be taken for infallible.

Presently Andrew ducked his head to mark the evening clouds flushing over the court-yard of the Aurora.

“Time to be off, Tom,” he said: “wife at home.”

“Ah!” Tom answered. “Well, I haven’t got to go to bed so early.”

“What an old rogue you are, Tom!” Andrew pushed his elbows forward on the table amiably. ’Gad, we haven’t drunk wine together since—by Jingo! we’ll have another pint.”

“Many as you like,” said Tom.

Over the succeeding pint, Andrew, in whose veins the Port was merry, favoured his brother with an imitation of Major Strike, and indicated his dislike of that officer. Tom informed him that Major Strike was speculating.

“The ass eats at my table, and treats me with contempt.”

“Just tell him that you’re putting by the bones for him. He’ll want ’em.”

Then Andrew, with another glance at the clouds, now violet on a grey sky, said he must really be off. Upon which Tom observed: “Don’t come here again.”

“You old rascal, Tom!” cried Andrew, swinging over the table: “it’s quite jolly for us to be hob-a-nobbing together once more. ’Gad!—no, we won’t though! I promised Harriet. Eh? What say, Tom?”

’Nother pint, Nan?”

Tom shook his head in a roguishly-cosy, irresistible way. Andrew, from a shake of denial and resolve, fell into the same; and there sat the two brothers—a jolly picture!

The hour was ten, when Andrew Cogglesby, comforted by Tom’s remark, that he, Tom, had a wig, and that he, Andrew, would have a wigging, left the Aurora; and he left it singing a song. That he would remember his match that night, few might like to wager. Tom Cogglesby had a better-seasoned bachelor head. He still sat at his table, holding before him Evan’s letter, of which he had got possession; and knocking it round and round with a stroke of the forefinger, to the tune of, “Tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor, ’pothecary, ploughboy, thief;” each profession being sounded as a corner presented itself to the point of his nail. After indulging in this species of incantation for some length of time, Tom Cogglesby read the letter from beginning to end, and called peremptorily for pen, ink, and paper.

architecture has always appeared to me to be infinitely more curious than the structure of birds’ nests, most interesting as some of these latter most certainly are. For instance, we have the Tailor-bird’s nest, suspended at the end of a slender branch, out of the reach of monkeys, snakes, &c., and then the delicately-formed nests of various humming-birds, composed of cobwebs, thistledown, &c.; but all these and many others must give way to the architecture of bees. These insects, in the construction of their cells, have solved a problem, at whose solution the human mind could arrive only by the application of a high branch of analytical science.

It is well known that bees have chosen the hexagonal form for their cells, as being, mathematically, the most convenient and economical one. Any other form would indeed have either involved inconveniently-shaped corners, or have entailed an absolute waste of the material employed in their construction. The hexagonal form alone evades these disadvantages, and it, at the same time, includes the indispensable requirement that each wall shall serve as a common partition to the adjacent cells. Up to this point, then, we observe great judgment exercised in the choice of the form best adapted for convenience and economy. In selecting the particular kind of roof, however, a still greater difficulty had to be overcome, and in mastering this, something more than judgment would appear to have been exercised. As in the case of the sides, owing to the bees having only a limited supply of material for building, it is necessary that the roof of each cell shall serve also for the flooring of the cells in the upper story, the plan of building the cells in tiers over each other having been originally adopted to avoid extending the building over too much superficial space. The scheme accordingly devised for the roofage is the following. Each hexagonal case is covered by a roof, composed of three perfect rhombi, inclined to each other at a certain angle, and terminating in a common vertex G, as in the annexed figure. Thus the complete roof of one cell contributes to the flooring of three upper ones. The three angles at G are equal, and of the same magnitude in every hive, and by careful measurement have been ascertained to be invariably equal to 10 degrees. Now it is in the selection of the particular size of this angle that the masterpiece of calculation, or whatever it may be called, is exhibited. Had this angle been chosen larger or smaller, the amount of wax required to enclose the same must, in either case, have been greater. By means of the differential calculus—an algebraical process of a high order—it has been ascertained, in the course of a long and elaborate investigation, that in order to enclose a maximum of space with given material within a hexagonal