produced his sample, a little lump of muddy clay
speckled with brownish grains, in a glass bottle wrapped about with lead
and flannel--red flannel it was, I remember--a hue which is, I know,
popularly supposed to double all the mystical efficacies of flannel.

"Don't carry it about on you," said Gordon-Nasmyth. "It makes a sore."

I took the stuff to Thorold, and Thorold had the exquisite agony of
discovering two new elements in what was then a confidential
analysis. He has christened them and published since, but at the time
Gordon-Nasmyth wouldn't hear for a moment of our publication of any
facts at all; indeed, he flew into a violent passion and abused me
mercilessly even for showing the stuff to Thorold. "I thought you were
going to analyse it yourself," he said with the touching persuasion of
the layman that a scientific man knows and practises at the sciences.

I made some commercial inquiries, and there seemed even then much truth
in Gordon-Nasmyth's estimate of the value of the stuff. It was before
the days of Capern's discovery of the value of canadium and his use of
it in the Capern filament, but the cerium and thorium alone were worth
the money he extracted for the gas-mantles then in vogue. There were,
however, doubts. Indeed, there were numerous doubts. What were the
limits of the gas-mantle trade? How much thorium, not to speak of
cerium, could they take at a maximum. Suppose that quantity was high
enough to justify our shipload, came doubts in another quarter. Were
the heaps up to sample? Were they as big as he said? Was
Gordon-Nasmyth--imaginative? And if these values held, could we after
all get the stuff? It wasn't ours. It was on forbidden ground. You see,
there were doubts of every grade and class in the way of this adventure.

We went some way, nevertheless, in the discussion of his project, though
I think we tried his patience. Then suddenly he vanished from London,
and I saw no more of him for a year and a half.

My uncle said that was what he had expected, and when at last
Gordon-Nasmyth reappeared and mentioned in an incidental way that he
had been to Paraguay on private (and we guessed passionate) affairs,
the business of the "quap" expedition had to be begun again at the
beginning. My uncle was disposed to be altogether sceptical, but I
wasn't so decided. I think I was drawn by its picturesque aspects.
But we neither of us dreamt of touching it seriously until Capern's
discovery.

Nasmy