We'd not been on the road for more than a few hours before we overtook a whole train of them, laboring up a long grade between the valleys of the Marne and the Ornain. By taking advantage of occasional wide places in the road, our driver was able to pass these carts one at a time. Peering out through the carriage windows, Dr. von Pfung and I could now plainly see that the carts were laden with pigs of a gray metal that might have been iron – but as there was not a speck of rust on any of them, they must have been lead. Reader, I hope you will not think me silly and girlish if I confess that I was pleased and excited to see my suspicions borne out and my cleverness proven at last. But a glance at the face of Dr. von Pfung crushed any such emotions, for he looked like a man who has returned home in the night-time to discover flames and smoke billowing from the windows of his own house.