"
As soon as the cheroots were lit, Mellish spoke like a man; beginning with his
cholera-theory, reviewing his fifteen years' "scientific labors," the
machinations of the "Simla Ring," and the excellence of his Fumigatory, while
the Viceroy watched him between half-shut eyes and thought: "Evidently, this
is the wrong tiger; but it is an original animal." Mellish's hair was standing
on end with excitement, and he stammered. He began groping in his coat-tails
and, before the Viceroy knew what was about to happen, he had tipped a bagful
of his powder into the big silver ash-tray.
"J-j-judge for yourself, Sir," said Mellish. "Y' Excellency shall judge for
yourself! Absolutely infallible, on my honor."
He plunged the lighted end of his cigar into the powder, which began to smoke
like a volcano, and send up fat, greasy wreaths of copper-colored smoke. In
five seconds the room was filled with a most pungent and sickening stench--a
reek that took fierce hold of the trap of your windpipe and shut it. The
powder then hissed and fizzed, and sent out blue and green sparks, and the
smoke rose till you could neither see, nor breathe, nor gasp. Mellish,
however, was used to it.
"Nitrate of strontia," he shouted; "baryta, bone-meal, etcetera! Thousand
cubic feet smoke per cubic inch.
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