hat he has
returned again to our world. Unless we choose to consider ourselves the
victims of an elaborate and motiveless fabrication, we are almost bound to
believe that this has occurred.

So much for the tangible facts. We come now to the account of the
phenomena that attended his temporary disappearance from the world. It
appears that in the Sussexville Proprietary School, Plattner not only
discharged the duties of Modern Languages Master, but also taught
chemistry, commercial geography, bookkeeping, shorthand, drawing, and any
other additional subject to which the changing fancies of the boys'
parents might direct attention. He knew little or nothing of these various
subjects, but in secondary as distinguished from Board or elementary
schools, knowledge in the teacher is, very properly, by no means so
necessary as high moral character and gentlemanly tone. In chemistry he
was particularly deficient, knowing, he says, nothing beyond the Three
Gases (whatever the three gases may be). As, however, his pupils began by
knowing nothing, and derived all their information from him, this caused
him (or anyone) but little inconvenience for several terms. Then a little
boy named Whibble joined the school, who had been educated (it seems) by
some mischievous relative into an inquiring habit of mind. This little boy
followed Plattner's lessons with marked and sustained interest, and in
order to exhibit his zeal on the subject, brought, at various times,
substances for Plattner to analyse. Plattner, flattered by this evidence
of his power of awakening interest, and trusting to the boy's ignorance,
analysed these, and even, made general statements as to their composition.
Indeed, he was so far stimulated by his pupil as to obtain a work upon
analytical chemistry, and study it during his supervision of the evening's
preparation. He was surprised to find chemistry quite an interesting
subject.

So far the story is absolutely commonplace. But now the greenish powder
comes upon the scene. The source of that greenish powder seems,
unfortunately, lost. Master Whibble tells a tortuous story of finding it
done up in a packet in a disused limekiln near the Downs. It would have
been an excellent thing for Plattner, and possibly for Master Whibble's
family, if a match could have been applied to that powder there and then.
The young gentleman certainly did not bring it to school in a packet, but
in a common eight-ounce graduated medicine bo