out a bottle now."

He ceased pumping, and opening a bottle of asparagus tips, he placed
them in a bowl, and prepared to drop out the bottle. I took my pencil
and wrote this message to go inside,--"Behold, I have decreed a judgment
upon the Earth; for it shall rain pickle bottles and biscuit tins for
the period of forty days, because of the wickedness of the world, unless
she repent!" And I pictured to myself the perplexity of the poor devil
who should see this message come straight down from heaven!

In order to make his experiment more successful, the doctor put in half
a dozen bullets from one of the rifles, to make the weight more
perceptible. Then he put the bottle into the discharging cylinder, and
preparing to push it out he stooped over the port-hole. At a signal from
him I gave the pump handle several quick, successive motions, and at the
same instant he let drop the bottle. At once he cried out,--

"Beautiful! and just as I thought."

"But I didn't see it!" I protested. "What was it?"

"The instant the bottle was released the discharged air was immediately
attracted toward it, and gradually surrounded it entirely. It was like a
little planet with an atmosphere of its own, as they fell back to the
Earth together."

"But I couldn't see it; I had to pump," I complained. "We must do it
again."

"We shall soon have our bottled things all emptied out on plates to dry
up and spoil," he objected. So I emptied a biscuit tin this time, and
delaying for no message, I put it in the discharging cylinder. Then I
bent over the port-hole and gave the signal for the pumping. As I thrust
out the tin I was astonished to see the lid pop off the first thing. The
quick expansion of the air inside it did that. This air, as well as the
air from the discharge pipe, seemed to flee from it instead of
surrounding it, as the doctor had said. I continued watching so long
that he finally said,--

"Hasn't it fallen out of sight yet?"

"No; it is not falling away swiftly as the air does. It is following the
projectile! It is not gathering any air about it as you said it would.
It does not quite keep up with us; but considering our speed, it is
doing remarkably well!"

The doctor was not inclined to believe me until he had looked for
himself. He watched and pondered for a minute or two. Then his surprise
ceased, and he spoke in that assured way which always irritated me.

"Quite natural, after all," he said. "That biscuit can is m