suddenly as it had come, the storm passed on,
leaving but a few scattered drops to fetch up the rear.

"Isn't that pretty nearly what people call a cloudburst, uncle Phaeton?"
asked Bruno, curiously watching that receding mass of what from their
present standpoint looked like vapour.

"Those wholly ignorant of meteorological phenomena might so pronounce,
perhaps, but never one who has given the matter either thought or
study," promptly responded the professor, in no wise loth to give a free
lecture, no matter how brief it might be, perforce. "It is merely nature
seeking to restore a disturbed equilibrium; a current of colder air, in
search of a temporary vacuum, caused by--"

"But isn't that just what produces cy--tornadoes, though?" interrupted
Waldo, with scant politeness.

"Precisely, my dear boy," blandly agreed their mentor, rubbing his
hands briskly, while peering through rain-dampened glasses, after that
departing storm. "And I have scarcely a doubt but that a tornado of no
ordinary magnitude will be the final outcome of this remarkable display.
For, as the record will amply prove, the most destructive windstorms are
invariably heralded by a fall of hail, heavy in proportion to the--"

"Then I'd rather be excused, thank you, sir!" again interrupted the
younger of the brothers, shrugging his shoulders as he stepped forth
from shelter to win a fairer view of the space stretching away towards
the south and the west. "I always laughed at tales of hailstones large
as hen's eggs, but now I know better. If I was a hen, and had to match
such a pattern as these, I'd petition the legislature to change my name
to that of ostrich,--I just would, now!"

Bruno proved to be a little more amenable to the law of politeness, and
to him Professor Featherwit confined his sapient remarks for the time
being, giving no slight amount of valuable information anent these
strange phenomena of nature in travail.

He spoke of the different varieties of land-storms, showing how a
tornado varied from a hurricane or a gale, then again brought to the
front the vital difference between a cyclone, as such, and the miscalled
"twister," which has wrought such dire destruction throughout a large
portion of our own land during more recent years.

While that little lecture would make interesting reading for those who
take an interest in such matters, it need scarcely be reproduced in this
connection, more particularly as, just when the professo