Page:The American Boy's Handy Book edition 1.djvu/167

burner, wrap the stem of a clay pipe with wet paper and push it into the other end of the tube, where it must fit so as to allow no gas to escape. Dip the bowl of your pipe into the suds Image missingGas-bubble. and turn the gas on; the force of the gas will be sufficient to blow the bubble for you, and, as the gas is lighter than the air, the bubble, when freed from the pipe, will rapidly ascend and never stop in its upward course until it perishes.

Old Uncle Cassius, an aged negro down in Kentucky, used to amuse the children by making smoke-bubbles.

Did you ever see smoke-bubbles? In one the white-blue smoke, in beautiful curves, will curl and circle under its crystal shell. Another will possess a lovely opalescent, pearly appearance, and if one be thrown from the pipe while quite small and densely filled with smoke, it will appear like an opaque polished ball of milky whiteness. It is always a great frolic for the children when they catch Uncle Cassius smoking his corn-cob pipe. They gather around his knee with their bowl of soapsuds and bubble pipes, and while the good-natured old man takes a few lusty whiffs from his corn-cob and fills his capacious mouth with tobacco smoke, one of the children dips a pipe into the suds, starts the bubble and passes it to Uncle Cassius. All then stoop down and watch the gradual growth of that wonderful smoke-bubble; and when "Dandy," the dog, chases and catches one of these bubbles, how the children laugh to see the astonished and injured look upon his face, and what fun it is to see him sneeze and rub his nose with his paw!