AUTOPHONES.

"THE rage of collections is the rage of the age," said my companion, as we were walking home from a lecture on the phonograph; "you've never collected anything, why don't you now start a collection of autophones?"

"Autophones?" said I, "what in the world are autophones? I never before heard of such a thing."

"Perhaps not," he replied; "but you Harvard Juniors ought to know Greek enough to see the derivation at once."

"Not at all, not at all," I answered, with some feeling; "one is not expected to learn any Greek now, you know, until our instructor returns from Greece, having imported the living language with him."

"Well, at any rate, you must see," he said, "that an autophone is the same thing with regard to the voice that an autograph is with regard to the writing. However, I must leave you here; so good night."

I walked on in deep reverie. "T is true," I said to myself, "that collecting is the rage of the age; I don't collect; can it be said that I am not of my own age?"

This question was too deep to solve; but the truth remained that every one collects something. Little boys collect birds' eggs; little girls, postage-stamps; theatre-goers, photographs; young ladies collect gentlemen's cards; older gentlemen collect tracts and MSS.; middle-aged ladies have a perfect mania for old lace and delft; and, finally, tradesmen are crazy to collect bills.

Decidedly the race has a passion for collections. Why should not I indulge in the universal rage, and collect autophones?

The more I thought it over, the greater appeared the value of my friend's suggestion. Instead of importuning great men like Mr. Hayes for their autographs, I might take my phonograph into Memorial Hall on the occasion of the next Alumni dinner and get his autophone.

How interesting it would be to reproduce, for the benefit of future ages, the exact tones and expressions of great orators like the Rev. Joseph Cook and Daniel Pratt. An autophone of the babel at Memorial Hall during dinner-time would be a valuable means of awakening old recollections. And the Glee Club, too, instead of being photographed, will hereafter be phonographed; and in place of preserving the members' portraits - which in a few years will be all out of style - we can carefully preserve and accurately reproduce the melodious tones of their voices, a source of great surprise and much edification to the musicians of the future.

So possessed was I of the idea, that for a time it seemed to me a reality. I thought of myself as a frenzied collector running about from house to house, person to person, with a machine under my arm, asking, beseeching every one to speak to it, to sing to it, that my collection might be completed.

I even thought of my collection as celebrated; and I seemed to have asked some young ladies to my room to hear the autophones of every one, from George Francis Train to my Goody; I set the machine going, totally forgetting that I had left it open during my absence, and had left my chum in the room. Imagine my horror, when the first thing it reeled off was, "If you don't get out of this room, you d -- poco - " I hastily awoke from my reverie, and declared that autophones were out of the question. It would n't do to subject one's conversation to so accurate a recorder.