Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 35.djvu/74

62 little leisure to indulge them. But he had already inoculated his only son with a love for such subjects. Willie, however, had never before been drawn within the magic circle of enthusiasm for them, and his highly sensitive temperament was fixed by the professor's descriptions and demonstrations immediately. Before the term was half over, he was a member of the society, and doing his best to "collect" for the society's museum.

Jack had many a hearty laugh over this disposition to hoard up a lot of old stones and things, and give them hard names. More than once he was asked to attend a society's meeting—for each member had the privilege of introducing a friend—but he always shirked it. "No," he said; "they are not my sort."

One wet evening, however, Willie Ransome got Jack to go, just because there was nothing else to do. There was a short paper being read on "Fish-Scales," and a number of them were mounted for microscopical examination, of course with a low power, say inch and half-inch. Anything relating to fish or fishing was certain to gain Jack's attention, therefore a better subject could not have been selected to engage his notice. Besides, Jack had never yet even looked through a microscope! He felt a bit ashamed of this now; but there were a couple of microscopes present, and Jack determined to have a good look through them. The scales of different sorts of British fishes were on view. Of course, fish-scales are common enough; but who would think that each kind