et.
"You have mistaken your business, my dear sir; you were undoubtedly
born to be an actor. But what are these two most important discoveries
of which you so exultantly speak?"

"They are a new medal and a new power," exclaimed the professor. Then,
fumbling in his breast-pocket, he drew forth a wallet from which he
extracted a small rectangular plate of--apparently--polished silver. It
measured about five inches long by four inches broad, and was about a
quarter of an inch thick.

"There, Sir Reginald," he exclaimed, offering the plate to the baronet,
"dell me whad you think of thad."

"Very pretty indeed," commented Sir Reginald, as he held out his hand to
take it. "What is it? Silver? Phew! No; it can't be that," as his
fingers closed upon it; "it is far too light for silver. Why, it seems
to be absolutely devoid of weight altogether. What is it, professor?"

"Thad, my good sir, is my new medal, which I gall `_aethereum_' begause
of ids wonderful lighdness. See here."

There was a very handsome cut glass water-jug, full, standing on the
table in a capacious salver of hammered brass. The professor took up
the jug and emptied it into the salver, almost filling the latter. Then
he laid the glittering slab of metal down on the surface of the water,
where it floated as buoyantly as though it had been an empty box
constructed of the lightest cardboard. The professor raised the salver
from the table and agitated the water, to show that the metal actually
floated.

"Why, it floats as lightly as a cork!" exclaimed the colonel in the
utmost astonishment.

"Korg!" exclaimed the professor disdainfully, "korg is _heavy_ gombared
with this. This is the lighdesd solid known. Loog ad this."

The professor lifted the plate of metal out of the water, and, wiping it
dry very carefully with his silk pocket-handkerchief, held it suspended,
flat side downwards, between his finger and thumb. Then, when he had
poised it as nearly horizontal as he could guess at, he let it go. It
wavered about in the air as a thin sheet of paper would have done, and
finally sailed aslant and very gently to the ground, amid the astonished
exclamations of the beholders, by whom it was immediately examined with
the utmost curiosity.

"You have seen for yourselves and gan therefore judge how marvellously
lighd this medal is," continued the professor when the plate had been
handed back to him; "bud ids _sdrength_ you musd dake my word