‘Thank ee, Mas’ Norman,’ replied Jim, touching his cap.

Fancy a Member of Parliament and an old English Baronet, by Gad! obliged to put a drawing-room clock and a buhl inkstand up the spout; and a gold duck’s-head paper-holder, that I dare say cost my wife five pound, for which they’d only give me fifteen-and-six!

It was written, not printed; written in a clear, even hand, with thick downstrokes and thin upstrokes, very large, easier than print, and so beautiful that Lucy stared at it for a whole minute and forgot about reading it.

So that, according to these men, the number of ætherial Spirits must needs be infinite : for if that be true that some of our Mathematicians say : if a stone could fall from the starry heaven, or eighth sphere, and should pass every hour an hundred miles, it would be 65 years or, or more, before it would come to ground, by reason of the great distance of heaven from earth, which contains, as some say, 170 millions 803 miles, besides those other heavens, whether they be crystalline or watery, which Maginus adds, which peradventure hold as much more, how many such spirits may it contain?