the rest of Europe: I may say, in the known world."

"'There was something most unpleasant about the Professor's voice; it
was a high-pitched, screaming sort of discordant tenor, exactly suited
to the mountebank tone in which he proclaimed his treasures. He fetched
his keys with a great clatter, and opened the door of a tastefully and
elegantly furnished hall, where the automatons were. There was a piano
in the middle of the loom, on a raised platform; beside it, on the
right, a life-sized figure of a man, with a flute in his hand; on the
left, a female figure, seated at an instrument somewhat resembling a
piano; behind her were two boys, with a drum and a triangle. In the
background our two friends noticed an orchestrion (which was an
instrument already known to them), and all round the walls were a
number of musical clocks. The Professor passed, in a cursory manner,
close by the orchestrion and the clocks, and just touched the
automatons, almost imperceptibly; then he sat down at the piano, and
began to play, _pianissimo_, an _andante_ in the style of a march. He
played it once through by himself; and as he commenced it for the
second time the flute-player put his instrument to his lips, and took
up the melody; then one of the boys drummed softly on his drum in the
most accurate time, and the other just touched his triangle, so that
you could hear it and no more. Presently the lady came in with full
chords, of a sound something like those of a harmonica, which she
produced by pressing down the keys of her instrument; and now the whole
room kept growing more and more alive; the musical clocks came in one
by one, with the utmost rhythmical precision; the boy drummed louder;
the triangle rang through the room, and lastly the orchestrion set to
work, and drummed and trumpeted _fortissimo_, so that the whole place
shook again; and this went on till the Professor wound up the whole
business with one final chord, all the machines finishing also, with
the utmost precision. Our friends bestowed the applause which the
Professor's complacent smile (with its undercurrent of sarcasm) seemed
to demand of them. He went up to the figures to set about exhibiting
some further similar musical feats; but Lewis and Ferdinand, as if by a
preconcerted arrangement, declared that they had pressing business
which prevented their making a longer stay, and took their leave of the
inventor and his machines.

"'"Most interesting and ingenious, wa