his process consisted, as he once informed me, in mixing
with the soap-suds a little gum. Using a solution of soap and gum, he
was able to produce bubbles of such size and solidity that they floated
in the air for an almost indefinite time, like so many small balloons.
In order to entertain the St. Petersburg public, Vivier would, in the
most benevolent manner, take his seat at an open window, and blow his
gigantic and many-coloured bubbles, until these prodigies of aerostation
had attracted a multitude of lookers-on. The delighted crowd applauded
with enthusiasm. Vivier rose from his seat and bowed. Then the applause
was renewed, and Vivier blew larger and brighter bubbles than before.

One evening, or rather afternoon, the rays of the setting sun were
illuminating a number of iridescent balloons floating high above the
point where the Nevsky Prospect runs into the Admiralty Square, when the
Emperor Nicholas drove past, or tried to do so--for his progress was
interrupted at every step by the density of the crowd.

"What is the meaning of all this?" asked the Emperor Nicholas.

"It is M. Vivier blowing his soap bubbles," replied the aide-de-camp in
attendance.

"What! Vivier, the French musician, who played the horn so wonderfully
the other night at the Winter Palace, and afterwards entertained us so
much with his conversation?"

"The same, sire."

"Go to him, then, and tell him that I should be glad if he would choose
some other time for his soap-bubble performances. How wonderful they
are!"

The aide-de-camp forced his way through the crowd, went upstairs to
Vivier's apartments, and told him that the Emperor desired him not to
give his exhibition of soap bubbles at half-past three in the afternoon,
that being the time when his Majesty usually went for a drive.

Vivier took out a pocket-book, consulted it carefully, and, turning to
the aide-de-camp, said with the utmost gravity, "That is the only hour I
have disengaged."

Vivier, meanwhile, had had his joke; and his exhibition of soap bubbles,
or rather of gum-and-soap balloons, was now discontinued.

The horn-playing performance to which the Emperor Nicholas had made
reference was marked by one strange, marvellous, almost inexplicable
peculiarity. The player sounded on his instrument, simultaneously, a
chord of four notes. To produce at the same time four different notes
from one and the same tube seems, and must be, an impossibility. But
Vivier did it, a