bubbles of gas come popping up, and as they mount I am ready with my
tumbler and saucer. I slip them both softly into the water a little way
off, draw out the saucer, slide the inverted tumbler over the bubbles
before they break; and the gas mounts into the tumbler, each bubble of gas
displacing a little water; then over more bubbles, and more and more,
until all the water in the tumbler is out and the gas is in its place;
then I fill the saucer with water again, slide it under the tumbler, and
bring it home."

"Come to your luncheon, children," cried nurse. "The pudding will be
cold."

"Oh, wait a minute," said Tom. "You said the gas drove out the water in
the tumbler. Why don't it drive out the water in the saucer?"

The Professor looked puzzled.

"Well, it would in time, I suppose. But you see, its nature is to push
upward, because it's light----"

"Oh, now, it pushes the same every way," said Tom.

"There's something we don't know," said Bob.

"Oh, yeth, I am afwaid we don't know it all," said Pip.

"Well," drawled the Professor, "I don't know, only I guess it's because
the water is too dense--too close together, for one thing; and the same
atmospheric pressure that kept the water in keeps the gas in, for
another."

"There, I do believe that's it," said Pip. "Oh, how nice it did pop off!
Like a vewy small fwier-cracker a great way off. Now let's have some
pudding. Apple and sago! Just the nithest pudding in the world!"

One day an ant went to visit her neighbor;
She found her quite busy with all sorts of labor;
So she didn't go in, but stopped at the sill;
Left her respects, and went back to her hill.

[Illustrations: MOUSIE'S ADVENTURES FROM GARRET TO CELLAR.]

FOUR CHARADES.[A]

BY C. P. CRANCH.

I.

When swiftly in my first you glide along,
Naught ruffles up the temper of your mind;
All goes as smoothly as a summer song,
All objects flit beside you like the wind.

But if you should be stopped in your career,
And forced to linger when you fain would fly,
You'll leave my first, and, very much I fear,
Will fall into my second speedily.

Till in some snug and comfortable room
Your friends receive you as a welcome guest,
You'll own that Winter's robbed of half his gloom,
When on my whole your feet in slippers rest.

II.

MY FIRST.

I sunder friends, yet give to laws
A place to sta