Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1894-11-02
vas jumping to conclusion. It might

ally his sign manual, gentlemen"
He smiled oddly at us. We expected
him to point some one out with his finger.
Ho looked for moment at the little slips
of paper on the bench beside him and hes
itated. We were all naturally much excit-
ed 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. mot quite that" ne
said. Clearly he meant to prolong the
agony.
when this fire broke out opposite" he
proceeded calmly, Il had a suspicion that
the things were connected. Very early this
neutrality-suspicious. sunrise, in fact-I went
over there. l traced the fire. with the help
of the firemen, down to the cellar. 1t had
been lit, as ! supposed it must have been,
through the coal plate. l rakcd about for
my carbon bisulphde bottle among the
cindcrs and ashes in the cellar and as soon
as they were cool enough for the search,
and l could not find it. My suspicious of
our connection with that fire grew little
fainter, but I still chung to them. The Gel
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 l went into the garden and hunted
about there. First l found a familiar
stopper, and that excited me. Then, I'M
der lilac bush, l found the bottle-bro-
ken, l suppose, by the foot of a fireman.
The label, you remember, on those store
t1,.. 81.
almost all the way round You will re-
member that our friend had upset "A bottle
Of starch mucilagc 1t is colorless, but
with iodine gives purple blue color. Be
fore left the laboratory noticed that our
friend had dubblod his fingers in this
starch, for upon the door handle l per
cciVed the dim marks Of them. l felt sure
that if l got the bottle there would be
traces of his fingers on the label. Accord
ingly l developed the label with iodine
and found three blue finger marks and a
beautiful thumb print. You may have
heard of Professor Cation.
He has made u medical study Of the
lines upon the human thumb and has pro
posed it as a method of identifying crimi-
mails. He has taken thousands of impress
sions from linked human thumbs at the
Anthropomctric laboratory at South Ken
sington, and in no two human beings are
these impressions alike. He has published
"a book of his prints. and a very good book
it is too. So here you see l have a 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. If the mis-
creant is present, we shall find him; if
uot"-
|
l 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. 1t had ground
glass label and was probably some acid.
ducked instinctively, and the missile whiz-
! zed over my head, touched Smith on the
shoulder and ricochcttcd with a terrific
smash into stand of boiler tubes beyond.
! There was the keen smell of nitrogen OK
! ldes in the air. The second bottle happily
| new wide, boWled over a bunsen burner
and two tripods and moved down all the
small bottles of reagents ON Wilderspin's
| bench.
never saw men scatter so quickly. I
turned wiki some idea Of graphing with
the lunatic and saw him grip "a bottle CT
sulphuric acld--uil OF yitrioi, that popular
ingredient ii the Partisan love philter
1 MS was too much for me- and lodged
round the beach 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 Wildcrspin.
his mouth twitchiug more than ever. he
hind one Of the benches. As soon as we
got chance we both followed the exam
pie of tho r1st and scuttled out upon the
landing. small bottle Of hydrochloric
acid caught Wildorspin 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 50 soon
as he had gained possession of the labora-
tory, but proceeded to raid round and col
lect together all the bottles Of acid, corro-
sive sublimate, lunar caustic and so forth
upon the bench nearest the window He
| clearly meant 10 invest his arrest with De-
culiar difficulty, but Smith was still equal
to him. He had run into the storeroom
and re-emcrged with a huge jar of that
most uncomfortable gas, sulphuretted by
dTogen.
Take out the bung and fling it in, "
said he, quick" and returned for the
pungent virtues of the ammonia.
We followed this up with a carboy of
hydrochloric acid and the ammonium sui
! phluO d gas only llNdlcu III It's offensive
ness by the sulphuretted hydrogen.
The enemy scarcely grasped our import
until these vapors spread toward him and
merely lodged behind a bench In 80 sec
onds there was as unpleasant a conflict of
chemical odors in that room as one can
well 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 or the floor l
saw small bottle fly toward me through
the wreck, but it missed the doorway and
knocked the blackboard over.
Stand out of the wayl' shrieked the
anarchist, looming up through the rising
fog and stencil, but we slammed the door
and shut him and his atmosphere in to-
gether. He tugg,d furiOusly at the handle
and hammered madly at the panel. l
heard him yell for mercy and fall a-cough-
ing l thought we had beaten him and
would have opened the door had not Smith
fearing a rush, restrained me- The an
nrchist's footsteps retreated, and there was
silence. We expected another rush at the