"Researches into the Natural
History of Limpets."

Waife entered the shop, and lifted his hat,--"Permit me, sir, to look at
that hand-bill."

"Certainly, sir; but the lecture is over; you can see by the date: it
came off last week. We allow the bills of previous proceedings at
our Athenaeum to be exposed at the window till the new bills are
prepared,--keeps the whole thing alive, sir."

"Conchology," said the Comedian, "is a subject which requires deep
research, and on which a learned man may say much without fear of
contradiction. But how far is Gatesboro' from the British Ocean?"

"I don't know exactly, sir,--a long way."

"Then, as shells are not familiar to the youthful remembrances of your
fellow-townsmen, possibly the lecturer may have found an audience rather
select than numerous."

"It was a very attentive audience, sir, and highly respectable: Miss
Grieve's young ladies' (the genteelest seminary in the town) attended."

WAIFE.--"Highly creditable to the young ladies. But, pardon me, is your
Athenaeum a Mechanics' institute?"

SHOPMAN.--"It was so called at first. But, somehow or other, the mere
operatives fell off, and it was thought advisable to change the word
'Mechanics' into the word 'Literary.' Gatesboro' is not a manufacturing
town, and the mechanics here do not realize the expectations of that
taste for abstract science on which the originators of these societies
founded their--"

WAIFE (insinuatingly interrupting).--"Their calculations of intellectual
progress and their tables of pecuniary return. Few of these societies,
I am told, are really self-supporting: I suppose Professor Long is!--and
if he resides in Gatesboro', and writes on limpets, he is probably a man
of independent fortune."

SHOPMAN.--"Why, sir, the professor was engaged from London,--five
guineas and his travelling expenses. The funds of the society could ill
afford such outlay; but we have a most worthy mayor, who, assisted by
his foreman, Mr. Williams, our treasurer, is, I may say, the life and
soul of the institute."

"A literary man himself, your mayor?"

The shopman smiled. "Not much in that way, sir; but anything to
enlighten the working classes. This is Professor Long's great work upon
limpets, two vols. post octavo. The Mayor has just presented it to the
library of the institute. I was cutting the leaves when you came in."

"Very prudent in you, sir. If limpets were but able to read printed
character