Oh, yes, Money talks. We all know that, and a very noisy talker it is and very harsh and metallic is its accent. But sometimes money talks in a whisper, so low that it can hardly be heard.

Then is the time it should be watched, even if spies and dictaphones must be set upon it. The money whose eloquence, we are told, wished the shackles of Prohibition on this land of the free, talked with such a “still small voice” that everybody (except you and me, dear Reader) mistook it for the voice of conscience.

Speaking of money perhaps you don’t know it, but it is nevertheless true, that the light given off by one of the many species of Firefly is the most efficient light known, being produced at about one four-hundredth part of the cost of the energy which is expended in the candle flame. That is what William J. Hammer says in his book on Radium, giving as his authority Professor S. P. Langley and F. W. Very.

And Sir Oliver Lodge says if the secret of the Firefly were known, a boy turning a crank could furnish sufficient energy to light an entire electric circuit.

But to the Casual Observer there is only one variety of Firefly.… Like Wordsworth’s primrose:

In reality there are almost as many different kinds of Firefly in the United States alone as there are varieties of the great American Pickle.

The late Professor Hagen of Harvard College, it is said, when enjoying the beauties of Nature one night in the company of the Casual Observer, was aroused from an apparent reverie by the question “Have you noticed the Fireflies, Professor?”

“Yes,” replied Professor Hagen, “I have already counted thirteen distinct species.”

Another quite different story is told of a well-known English actress—Cecilia Loftus, if you insist on knowing her name. It was her first visit to America and Miss Loftus was sitting with another Casual Observer on the piazza of a country house whose grounds were separated from the road by a belt of trees.

“Do you see the Fireflies?” said the Casual Observer, pointing toward the road.

“Fireflies!” exclaimed Cecilia, “why, I thought they were hansom-cab lights!”