“There is one man,” said my cousin, “whom he calls ‘diaphragm’ because he wanted a fiddle made with what he called a diaphragm in it. He knows Dando and Carrodus and Jenny Lind, but hardly any one else.”
“Who is Dando?” said I.
“Why, Dando? Not know Dando? He was George the Fourth’s music master, and is now one of the oldest members of the profession.”
Window Cleaning in the British Museum Reading-Room
Once a year or so the figures on the Assyrian bas-reliefs break adrift and may be seen, with their scaling ladders and all, cleaning the outside of the windows in the dome of the reading-room. It is very pretty to watch them and they would photograph beautifully. If I live to see them do it again I must certainly snapshot them. You can see them smoking and sparring, and this year they have left a little hole in the window above the clock.
The Electric Light in its Infancy
I heard a woman in a ’bus boring her lover about the electric light. She wanted to know this and that, and the poor lover was helpless. Then she said she wanted to know how it was regulated. At last she settled down by saying that she knew it was in its infancy. The word “infancy” seemed to have a soothing effect upon her, for she said no more but, leaning her head against her lover’s shoulder, composed herself to slumber.
Fire
I was at one the other night and heard a man say: “That corner stack is alight now quite nicely.” People’s sympathies seem generally to be with the fire so long as no one is in danger of being burned.