My Library

startled by the exclamations, ‘Careless fool! Look out! Run!’ Mechanically I obeyed, leaped into the outer office, and had scarcely done so, than there occurred a loud explosion. The retort had burst into a million fragments, shattering the windows and apparatus into fine pieces, and scattering some pounds of ignited phosphorus upon the floor. Here was trouble. But not to the speaker—for, quick as light, he tore the carpet off the office floor, and hurled it, phosphorus and all, into the snow-drifts in the yard below, which soon melted under the intense blaze of that almost quenchless fire, until, having consumed itself, nothing but a white smoke was left to tell the danger I and the house had been in. “The fire out, and my fright subsided, I turned to see who it was that had so opportunely saved me, and found the little old man smiling and smirking before me. “ ‘What! is it you, then?’ I asked, at the same time cordially extending my hand toward him. “ ‘I rather think it is!’ said he, grasping it, ‘and very lucky for you it was that I chanced to happen along “ ‘So early in the morning, Just after break of day,’ said and sung the Enigma, continuing: ‘You are not an overwise chemist, my dear doctor, else