(_Hear, hear!_ from Milburd.) I proceed to do so,
and can assure you that the experiment with the gases, is not more
harmless and simple than this, with the water.

He pours the water out of the glass jar into the earthenware one. In one
second follows a series of sharp reports from inside the jar, which
seems suddenly to have become filled with highly combustible crackers.
The Professor drops the jar as if he had burnt his fingers, and the
cracking and popping go on inside. Ladies rise frightened. Layder
suddenly addresses them:

"There's no sort of danger," he says; "the jar won't burst. I dropped an
explosive pellet into it some time ago, and it hasn't been taken out,
that's all. The explosive pellets," he adds, modestly, "are my own
invention, and chemically prepared, only to burn in water."

The cracking has ceased. Layder goes out, ostensibly to see if he can
procure another jar.

In his absence the ladies observe that the 'cracking thing,' whatever it
was, has left a nasty smell in the room.

The Professor, with a smile, thinks that he can obviate this
unpleasantness. He has come across a fluid among the chemicals labelled
"_Parfum du Paradis_." The direction upon it is simply, "_Pour it out
into a saucer, and everyone will be delighted at the refreshing and
delicious odour which will instantaneously pervade even the largest
apartment._"

The Professor, after uncorking and putting his nose to it, pronounces
his opinion that the liquid is inodorous, and must have been kept too
long in bottle.

"However," says he, "I will follow the direction."

Forthwith he pours it out.

The next minute we are all cramming our handkerchiefs to our faces, and
making for the door.

"Open the windows!" cries Medford, in a fit of coughing.

"O my"--cough--"Jo!" exclaims the Signor. "I shall be,"--cough and
sneeze, "so ill,"--cough, "eet ees in my nose."

[Illustration: "BUST UP."]

As for the Professor, being just over the horrible compound, he has
nearly fainted.

* * * * *

The room is cleared.

Servants sent to open windows. Sneezing, coughing, and a suffocating,
nauseating sensation, experienced by everyone except Layder, who now
enters the drawing-room with a jar.

_Happy Thought._--To speak with an air of authority as President, and
tell him that it is really too bad of him to carry such a liquid about.
He exculpates himself by saying that