“Oh well,” he said, standing up, “I’m tired of sitting. I’ll give him a steer in the right direction.”
“Why bother?” said Tim. But Jimmie was gone.
“I am looking for the morgue,” said the little old man in answer to a friendly word from Jimmie.
“But this is a newspaper office, not the morgue,” Jimmie laughed in spite of himself.
“The laugh is on you, young man,” said the stranger. “There is a morgue in every large newspaper office. There is one here, only I have forgotten where it is.
“You see,” he went on before Jimmie could reply, “I want to find out about heavy water.”
“Heavy water!” Jimmie exclaimed as he thought, ‘He is a nut after all.’ “Water always weighs the same,” he added politely.
“Wrong again.” The old man smiled. “It all depends upon your proportions of hydrogen and oxygen. That is just what I wish to read about. You must have clippings about it in your morgue.”
“Clippings!” Jimmie exclaimed. “Clippings in the morgue! Oh, sure. It’s over this way.” Suddenly he had recalled that the files where pictures and clippings were kept was often called the morgue.
“You, no doubt, think me a trifle strange,” the old man half apologized. “Old clothes and all that. Truth is, I haven’t time for dressing up. I have a chemical laboratory and it is astonishing what a busy place that can be, truly astonishing. Here is my card.” He pressed a paste-board square into the boy’s hand. “Come and see me sometime. I will show you things that will astonish you.”