asses
from group to group. For what he shouted was the one word "Breath!"
And Rosalind knew its meaning as her head swam and she heard no more.

CHAPTER XLVII

WAS IT THE LITTLE GALVANIC BATTERY? THE LAST CHAPTER RETOLD BY THE
PRESS. A PROPER RAILING. BUT THEY _WEREN'T_ DROWNED. WHAT'S THE FUSS?
MASTER CHANCELLORSHIP APPEARS AND VANISHES. ELECTUARY OF ST. SENNA.
AT GEORGIANA TERRACE. A LETTER FROM SALLY. ANOTHER FROM CONRAD.
EVERYTHING VANISHES!

Professor Sales Wilson, Mrs. Julius Bradshaw's papa, was enjoying
himself thoroughly. He was the sole occupant of 260, Ladbroke Grove
Road, servants apart. All his blood-connected household had departed
two days after the musical evening described in Chapter XL., and
there was nothing that pleased him better than to have London to
himself--that is to say, to himself and five millions of perfect
strangers. He had it now, and could wallow unmolested in Sabellian
researches, and tear the flimsy theories of Bopsius--whose name we
haven't got quite right--to tatters. Indeed, we are not really sure
the researches _were_ Sabellian. But no matter!

Just at the moment at which we find him, the Professor was not engaged
in any researches at all, unless running one's eye down the columns
of a leading journal, to make sure there is nothing in them, is a
research. That is what he was doing in his library. And he was also
talking to himself--a person from whom he had no reserves or
concealments. What he had to say ran in this wise:

"H'm!--h'm!--'The Cyclopean Cyclopaedia.' Forty volumes in calf. Net
price thirty-five pounds. A digest of human knowledge, past, present,
and probable. With a brief appendix enumerating the things of which
we are still ignorant, and of our future ignorance of which we are
scientifically certain ... h'm! h'm!... not dear at the price. But
stop a bit! 'Until twelve o'clock on Saturday next copies of the
above, with revolving bookcase, can be secured for the low price of
seven pounds ten.'..." This did not seem to increase the speaker's
confidence and he continued, as he wrestled with a rearrangement of
the sheet: "Shiny paper, and every volume weighs a ton. Very full of
matter--everything in it except the thing you want to know. By-the-bye
... what a singular thing it is, when you come to think of it, that
so many people will sell you a thing worth a pound for sixpence, who
won't give you a shilling outright on any terms! It must have to do