discovered, are not stars. They are nothing
but silver nails driven into the sky, and that is
why they fall down in November, when the
wind shakes out those that are not tightly
hammered in. I deduced this startling discovery
from the fact that I was a star, and, on close
examination, had found myself only a common
silver nail. It almost stopped my twinkling to
think of the gross and impudent deception that
had been practised on the public, in bringing
them up to believe, that stars were anything.
more. Then they are not high—scarcely a
mile, within easy ballooning, distance—and yet
the world had never found it out. / was
dumb, another of myself was dead, and the
third asleep, and I—we could never tell the
discovery. I had one pleasing reflection that
helped, in some degree, to make amends for my
inability to tell the world about stars. That
was a sort of comfortable internal consciousness,
that my being driven into the sky as a
silver nail, had some intimate concern with a
very just revenge to be wrought on my
murderer the dwarf, though without any idea how
it was to be realised.

We stars, you must know, are sizeable nails,
about the size of a giant's hat-peg. I was
driven in, in a row with half a dozen others.
I heard a kind of a chopping noise near me,
and, looking up, who should I see but the
dreadful dwarf and his mysterious loop. I was
aware then, for the first time, that he lived up
here; that this was, in short, his passage, and
that we were his hat-pegs. I saw him take off
his lobster-shell hat and hang it on an adjacent
star, like an extinguisher, to put it out for the
night. Then I shone on him most seductively.
I suppose he thought he had taken his coat off,
but these cunning people so often overreach
themselves. He took hold of his loop, and I
conclude, in a moment of absence of mind, he
hung himself up, in his coat, on the silver nail,
which was the star, which was me. He gave
several terrible chops, which were like music in
my ears, revenge being sweet. He was then
no more. I wished he could have been some
more for a trifle longer, for I revelled in his
sufferings. Alas, for rejoicing in the misfortunes
of others. His weight was too much for
me. I felt myself loosening from a wretched
lath and plaster sky, and at last down I came,
lobster man and all, a good mile, plump on the
earth.

—The floor of my room, of course. Naturally,
the fall woke me from my dream. Looking
out of window I saw the star I had watched
before dozing off to sleep, had just emerged
from the top bough of the firs, and the lobster
man was comfortably hanging, by his loop, to a
silver nail over the mantelshelf. I resumed my
broken rest, and slept dreamless till morning.

When I came down-stairs, the waitress
ventured to ask how I had slept. I explained I
had had a bad dream.

"I knew how 'twould be, sir," she explained.
"I've told missus of it afore to-day. 'Tain't
nothing new. Everybody dreams bad that
sleeps in that bed."

"Indeed," I said; "and pray why does
everybody dream bad, who sleeps there?"

"Because, if you please, sir, missus she
stuffed that there bed with live feathers—
never baked 'em first" (she explained, observing
I didn't comprehend), "and they heave, and
heave, and heave, and rise like yeast when
anybody sleeps on 'em, and you are bound to
dream."

           STATUE-MAKING.

STATUES are dear. The reason why statues
are so dear, is, that the mere cost of making
them is very great: far beyond what is
commonly supposed. It is a fact, as melancholy as
true, that many sculptors (especially among
those who are little in renown) have barely
enough to pay them for the material cost of
their work, in a cheque, which to inexperienced
eyes might seem very liberal. A certain class
of speculators, who trade on the talent of young
but penurious artists, know this perfectly well;
and the public may understand it the better, if
they will consider the various processes through
which a work of sculpture must pass, from the
moment when it is conceived by the artist, to
the day when it is exhibited as a complete
work.

First, let us treat of marble sculpture.

When an artist thinks of executing a statue
in marble, his first step is usually to make
a drawing of what he has planned. Some
sculptors make as many as ten, twenty, fifty,
drawings before hitting upon a composition
which pleases them: and this labour is of course
multiplied threefold or fourfold when a group
is projected, and not merely a single figure.
No one who has not studied sculpture, can
realise the arduous problems involved in
the designing of a limb, or in the correct
delineation of a posture. A line out of place, a
curve too hastily drawn, and the effect of the
whole work may be marred. Patience is the
watchword of sculptors. Better begin a sketch,
a hundred times, than allow a bad drawing to
become the design of a faulty statue.

After the work of sketching has been happily
ended, the sculptor begins modelling, either in
clay or wax, one or more miniatures of the
statue, and has them cast in plaster. This
process of modelling is to the making of a statue
what the laying of a foundation stone is to the
rearing of a building; it is the inauguration of
the real work. Too frequently, however, the
early models bring cruel deceptions to the
artist. He finds that he has imagined more
than he is able to perform, that his hand
refuses to follow the guidance of his brain; or,
worse still, that the figure which looked well
enough on paper will not do for a statue, and
that the whole course of planning and sketching
must be gone through again. This is the
moment most trying to beginners, especially to
those who are over diffident. Upon finding
how poorly his work interprets the meaning of
his fancy, many a young artist throws up his