the
Theater and Museum building, for that was the job his father hunted up
for him. William was in charge of the penny-in-the-slot machines of all
kinds, a full description of which will be found in this book under the
head of 'Machines, Automatic,' including a description of how made,
how to use and how to repair. In fact, there is nothing in the way of
information, from how to tell the weight of a baby by measuring its
waist, to the age, size and history of the immortal pyramids of Egypt,
one of the seven wonders of the world, that this book does not contain.
It interests alike the student and the business man. And," he continued
quickly as Skinner was about to interrupt him, "among the slot machines
of which William Rossiter had charge were twenty-four lung-testers."

"Twenty-four!" exclaimed Skinner. "Them St. Louis folks must like to
test their lungs!"

"No," said Eliph', "they don't, and that is what makes me feel so bad
about William Rossiter. The St Louis people didn't care for lung-testers
at all. They crowded pennies into all the other machines, but they would
just go up to the lung-testers and sort of sniff at them, and walk away
without trying them. So there those twenty-four lung-testers stood,
useless to man and beast, all in a row, doing nobody any good, and there
I was on the floor below reading out of a book that would have told Bill
Rossiter how to make those lung-testers worth their weight in gold, and
would have saved his life. And to think he could have bought this book
for the small nominal sum of----"

"You said that once," said Skinner. "Five dollars; one dollar down, and
one dollar a month until paid."

"Bound in cloth," said Eliph'. "Seven fifty if in morocco leather. So at
the very minute that the fire broke out----"

"Fire!" said Skinner; "what fire? You didn't say anything about a fire."

"The fire in the theater and museum," said Eliph'. "It started right
on the stairs between the second and third floors, and the old building
flared up like dry paper. Two or three men that was trying the slot
machines saw the smoke and run for the lung-testers, thinking by the
look they were fire-extinguishers, which was the most natural mistake
in the world. The looks of them would fool anybody, but they were
lung-testers, and there that old building was, with twenty-four
lung-testers in it, and not one fire-extinguisher. After that fire
they passed an ordinance compelling every theater to have four