“But, Mother, I have some money from the mine.”
“No, no, Jerry!” she exclaimed, with a gentle smile. “I am not so poor as all that. You keep your little fortune. I dare say my affairs will come out all right after all. I shall sell the swamp land, even though the company is practically, as you say, forcing me to do by threats.”
“If only that yellow clay was of some value,” observed Jerry. “But the professor said it was not.” So the swamp land was sold, and Professor Snodgrass did not appear.
[CHAPTER IX]
A HURRIED DEPARTURE
Three men were seated about a table in a small room. On the table were several instruments, a delicate scale, glass vessels and test tubes, a burning alcohol lamp that flickered under a pan, in which boiled, bubbled and steamed some odd-smelling mixture.
“Isn’t it almost done?” asked one of the men. “It seems to me, Professor Bailey, that it has cooked long enough.”
“What do you say, Professor Snodgrass?” was the reply of the one appealed to.
“Hum! Well, you might put a little more of the clay in, and add a bit more glycerine. I think that would make it about the right consistency,” and the little bald-headed man bent over the steaming pan.