d to consult a taxidermist, to whom I represented that I
wished to collect small animals and reptiles and rapidly dry them for
convenience of transport. By this person I was advised to immerse the
dead animals in a jar of methylated spirit for a week and then expose
them in a current of warm, dry air.

"But the plan of immersing the remains of the deceased in a jar of
methylated spirit was obviously impracticable. However, I bethought me
that we had in our collection a porphyry sarcophagus, the cavity of
which had been shaped to receive a small mummy in its case. I tried the
deceased in the sarcophagus and found that he just fitted the cavity
loosely. I obtained a few gallons of methylated spirit which I poured
into the cavity, just covering the body, and then I put on the lid and
luted it down air-tight with putty. I trust I do not weary you with
these particulars?"

"I'll ask you to cut it as short as you can, Mr. Jellicoe," said Badger.
"It has been a long yarn and time is running on."

"For my part," said Thorndyke, "I find these details deeply interesting
and instructive. They fill in the outline that I had drawn by
inference."

"Precisely," said Mr. Jellicoe; "then I will proceed.

"I left the deceased soaking in the spirit for a fortnight and then took
him out, wiped him dry, and laid him on four cane-bottomed chairs just
over the hot-water pipes. I turned off the hot water in the other rooms
so as to concentrate the heat in these pipes, and I let a free current
of air pass through the room. The result interested me exceedingly. By
the end of the third day the hands and feet had become quite dry and
shrivelled and horny--so that the ring actually dropped off the shrunken
finger--the nose looked like a fold of parchment; and the skin of the
body was so dry and smooth that you could have engrossed a lease on it.
For the first day or two I turned the deceased at intervals so that he
should dry evenly, and then I proceeded to get the case ready. I
divided the lacing and extracted the mummy with great care--with great
care as to the case, I mean; for the mummy suffered some injury in the
extraction. It was very badly embalmed, and so brittle that it broke in
several places while I was getting it out; and when I unrolled it the
head separated and both the arms came off.

"On the sixth day after the removal from the sarcophagus, I took the
bandages that I had removed from Sebek-hotep and very carefully wrapped
th