rst in.
You can imagine how mad the chemist was! He came near throwing his
crucible--that was the name of his melting-pot--at their heads. But he
didn't. He listened as calmly as he could to the story of how Mrs.
Peterkin had put salt in her coffee.

At first he said he couldn't do anything about it; but when Agamemnon
said they would pay in gold if he would only go, he packed up his
bottles in a leather case, and went back with them all.

First he looked at the coffee, and then stirred it. Then he put in a
little chlorate of potassium, and the family tried it all round; but it
tasted no better. Then he stirred in a little bichlorate of magnesia.
But Mrs. Peterkin didn't like that. Then he added some tartaric acid
and some hypersulphate of lime. But no; it was no better. "I have it!"
exclaimed the chemist,--"a little ammonia is just the thing!" No, it
wasn't the thing at all.

Then he tried, each in turn, some oxalic, cyanic, acetic, phosphoric,
chloric, hyperchloric, sulphuric, boracic, silicic, nitric, formic,
nitrous nitric, and carbonic acids. Mrs. Peterkin tasted each, and said
the flavor was pleasant, but not precisely that of coffee. So then he
tried a little calcium, aluminum, barium, and strontium, a little clear
bitumen, and a half of a third of a sixteenth of a grain of arsenic.
This gave rather a pretty color; but still Mrs.

Peterkin ungratefully said it tasted of anything but coffee. The chemist
was not discouraged. He put in a little belladonna and atropine, some
granulated hydrogen, some potash, and a very little antimony, finishing
off with a little pure carbon. But still Mrs. Peterkin was not
satisfied.

The chemist said that all he had done ought to have taken out the
salt. The theory remained the same, although the experiment had failed.
Perhaps a little starch would have some effect. If not, that was all
the time he could give. He should like to be paid, and go. They were all
much obliged to him, and willing to give him $1.37 1/2 in gold. Gold
was now 2.69 3/4, so Mr. Peterkin found in the newspaper. This gave
Agamemnon a pretty little sum. He sat himself down to do it. But there
was the coffee! All sat and thought awhile, till Elizabeth Eliza said,
"Why don't we go to the herb-woman?" Elizabeth Eliza was the only
daughter. She was named after her two aunts,--Elizabeth, from the sister
of her father; Eliza, from her mother's sister. Now, the herb-woman was
an old woman who came round to sell h