The inventor, who had not foreseen these difficulties, was not
prepared to surmount them; but he took the hint in good part, and
promised to task his abilities anew, in altering the construction
of his design. Not but that he underwent some severe irony from
the rest of the virtuosi, who complimented him upon the momentous
improvement he had made, by which a family might save a dish of
greens in a quarter, for so trifling an expense as that of purchasing,
working, and maintaining such a stupendous machine; but no man was
ever more sarcastic in his remarks upon this piece of mechanism
than the naturalist, who next appealed to the patron's approbation
for a curious disposition he had made touching the procreation of
muck-flies, in which he had laid down a curious method of collecting,
preserving, and hatching the eggs of these insects, even in the
winter, by certain modifications of artificial heat. The nature of
this discovery was no sooner communicated, than Peregrine, unable
to contain himself, was seized with a fit of laughter, which infected
every person at the table, the landlord himself not excepted, who
found it impossible to preserve his wonted gravity of face.
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