The Portland daily press., 1894-11-01
was jumping to a conclusion. It might

be inconvenient for some of us.
THE gentleman, quite inadvertently,
had written his signature to the theft;
had left his sign manual to his act-liter-
ally his sign manual, gentlemen"
He smiled oddly at us. We expected
him to point some one out with his finger.
He looked for moment at the little slips
Of paper on the bench beside him and hes
stated. We were all naturally much exoit-
I'd by this time.
"You don't mean,'' said the new stu
dent, 'you don't mean that the man who
stole that carbon bisulphide was so absent
minded-so madly Observation-Disclosures to
write his name"-
Our teacher, still smiling, shook his
head in negation. Not quite that, he
said. Clearly he meant to prolong the
agony.
when this fire broke out opposite, he
proceeded calmly, 'sI had suspicion that
the things were connected. Very early this
morning-before sunrise, in fact-I went
over there. traced the fire. with the help
of the firemen, down to the cellar. 1t had
been lit, as I supposed it must have been,
through the coal plate. I raked about for
my carbon bisulphide bottle among the
cinders and ashes in the cellar and as soon
as they were cool enough for the search,
and could not find it. My suspicious of
our connection with that fire grew little
fainter, but still chung to them. The cell
lar was extremely hot, and my investiga-
tions in consequence superficial, SO that
determined to repeat the search more thor
oughly later in the day.
"To fill the time up after breakfast and
bath went into the garden and hunted
about there. First I found familiar
stopper, and that excited me. Then, un-
der a lilac bush, found the bottle-bro-
ken, suppose by the foot of fireman.
The label, you remember, on those store
room bottles is large paper one that goes
almost all the way round. You win re-
member that our friend had upset bottle
of starch mucilage 1t is colorless, but
with Iodine gives purple blue color. Be
fore I left the laboratory noticed that our
friend had dabbled his fingers in this
starch, for upon the door handle / per-
ceived the dim marks of them. I felt sure
that il got the bottle there would be
traces Of his fingers on the label. Accord
ingly developed the label with iodine
and found three blue finger marks and
beautiful thumb print You may have
heard of Professor Galton.
ssHe has made a medical study of the
lines upon the human thumb and has pro-
posed it as method OF Identifying crimi-
nails. He has taken thousands of impress
sions from linked human thumbs at the
Anthropometric laboratory at South Ken
sington, and in no two human beings are
these impressions alike. He has published
q book of his prints. and very good book
1t is too So here you see have little
printers ink mixed with oil smeared on
this paperweight, and here are some little
slips of paper. and the whole matter will
be settled in a few minutes. II the mis-
creant is present, we shall find him; it
not
''Look outl" cried Wilderspin.
turned round to see the new man hold
ing bottle in either hand. The anarchist
had discovered himself. One bottle was
poised ready to throw. It had a ground
glass label and was probably some acid.
ducked instinctively, and the missile whiz-
zed over my head, touched Smith on the
shoulder and ricochetted with terrific
smash into stand of boiler tubes beyond.
There was the keen smell of nitrogen OK
ides in the air. The second bottle happily
few wide, bowled over bunsen burner
and two tripods and moved down all the
small bottles of reagents on Wilderspins 8
bench.
never saw men scatter so quickly.
turned with some idea of graphing with
the lunatic and saw him grip bottle of
sulphuric acid-oil of vitriol, that popular
ingredient of the Partisan love philter
This was too much for me, and lodged
round the bench forthwith. Some of the
fellows had got out of the room and stood
on the staircase, whittier Smith had also
made good his retreat. saw Wilderspin,
his mouth twitehing more than ever, be-
hind one of the Benches. AS soon as we
got chance we both followed the exam
pie of the rest and scuttled out upon the
landing. A small bottle of hydrochloric
acid caught Wilderspin in the neck, made
him yell dismally and turned his coat a
bright red forthwith.
There was method in the anarchists
madness. He threw nothing more SO soon
as he had gained possession Of the labora-
tory, but proceeded to raid round and col
lect together adj the bottles of acid, corro-
sive sublimate, lunar caustic and so forth
upon the bench nearest the window. He
clearly meant to invest his arrest with pc
culiar difficulty, but Smith was still equal
to him. He had run into the storeroom
esAA0 ~ -OkACi SC0 W1uA a uuSO j1I VI OAdu
most uncomfortable gas sulphuretted ny
drogen.
"Take out the bung and fling it in,
said he, "quickP' and returned for the
pungent virtues of the ammonia.
We followed this up with carboy of
hydrochloric acid and the ammonium sui
phide, gas only rivaled in its offensive
ness by the sulphuretted hydrogen.
The enemy scarcely grasped our import
until these vapors spread toward him and
merely lodged behind bench. In 80 Sec
onds there was as unpleasant conflict of
chemical odors in that room as one can
we'll imagine, and the air was dense with
white clouds of ammonium chloride. The
enemy soon discovered our aim and tried
charge. AS the jar of ammonium sui
phide went in and smashed on the floor
saw a small bottle fly toward me through
the wreck, but it missed the doorway and
knocked the blackboard over.
"Stand out of the way!' shrieked the
anarchist, looming up through the rising
fog and stencil, but we slammed the door