term, but that is the exact expression)—pilfered from his father's stock small but frequent supplies when their united pocket-money had become exhausted. I am perfectly well aware that no criminal action is being taken in the matter; that Blithers senior has been so weak-minded as to declare publicly that for the first time in his life he is proud of his son; and that a number of ridiculous comparisons have been made to the tenacity of a Dalton, the diffidence of a Cavendish, the fortuitous energy of a Priestley, and so on, but the one reliable fact standing among a mass of pretension and fulsome adulation is that this so-called new mineral owes its isolation to theft, and all who countenance its soi-disant "discoverer" are directly encouraging a felony.
About this time I finished a series of investigations on which I had been engaged in connection with our celebrated Campton chalybeate spring. It is usually referred to here as "celebrated," though I have never met any living soul ten miles beyond the Campton market cross who had ever heard of it; and one has to travel very little farther than that to find a majority who have even heard of Campton. Yet it has been conclusively proved that in similar circumstances the Campton water would be equally efficacious as that of Contrexéville, and competent local authorities have been unable to detect any inferiority in it to the products of Spa, Schwalbach, or Pyrmont; while, coming nearer home, it is frequently admitted that under capable development Campton might reasonably aspire to usurp the position of Harrogate as a health resort. In this labour, apart from the fascination of verifying the results of previous analysts, I confess that I had a second object.
I have already spoken of our distinguished resident, Sir Walter Bent. I had long recognised the advantage which would lie in being associated scientifically with
