a large and highly colored plate, wherein several steam-engines
were employed in supplying mill-streams with water from a vast lake,
while thousands of people seemed busily engaged in spade labor on
its borders. "That is the 'Lough Corrib Drainage and Fresh Strawberry
Company,' capital eight hundred thousand pounds! Chemical analysis
has discovered that the soil of drained lands, treated with a suitable
admixture of the alkaline carbonates, is peculiarly favorable to
the growth of the strawberry,--a fruit whose properties are only now
receiving their proper estimate. The strawberry, you are perhaps not
aware, is a great anti-scorbutic. Six strawberries, taken in a glass of
diluted malic acid of a morning, fasting, would restore the health
of those fine fellows we are now daily losing in such numbers in the
Crimea. I mean, of course, a regular treatment of three months of
this regimen, with due attention to diet, cleanliness, and habit of
exercise,--all predisposing elements removed, all causes of mental
anxiety withdrawn. To this humane discovery this great industrial
speculation owes its origin. There you see the engines at full work; the
lake is in process of being drained, the water being all utilized by the
mills you see yonder, some of which are compressing the strawberry pulp
into a paste for exportation. Here are the people planting the shoots;
those men in blue, with the watering-pots, are the alkaline feeders, who
supply the plant with the chemical preparation I mentioned, the strength
being duly marked by letters, as you see. B. C. P. means bi-carbonate of
potash; S. C. S., sub-carbonate of soda; and so on. Already, sir," said
he, raising his voice, "we have contracts for the supply of twenty-eight
tons a week, and we hope," added he, with a tremulous fervor in his
voice, "to live to see the time when the table of the poorest peasant in
the land will be graced by the health-conducing condiment."

"With all my heart and soul I wish you success," said Driscoll; while
he muttered under his breath what sounded like a fervid prayer for the
realization of this blessed hope.

"Of that we are pretty certain, sir," said Clowes, pompously; "the
shares are now one hundred and twelve,--paid up in two calls, thirty-six
pounds ten shillings, _He_," said Clowes, with a jerk of his thumb
towards Mr. Dunn's room, meant to indicate its owner,--"_he_ don't like
it; calls it a bubble, and all that, but I have, known him mistaken,