“Oh, no; I see why,” said Guest quickly. “Bad smells, perhaps, from the waste pipe—sewer gas.”
“Don’t smell like bad gas,” said Jem, sniffing about and ending by dipping a finger in the bath, and holding it to his nose, after which he gave a peculiar grunt.
“Well?”
“Sperrits.”
“Nonsense, man!” cried Guest. “What! That?”
“That’s sperrits, sure enough, sir,” said the man, dipping his finger in the bath again. “Open that there lantern, pardner.”
The sergeant obeyed, and his companion thrust in his finger, for it to be enveloped directly with a bluish flame.
“Mind what you’re doing,” said the sergeant hastily, “or we shall have the whole place a-fire.”
“All right, pardner. Sperrits it is, and, I should say, come in them cans.”
He gave one of the great tins a tap with his toe, and it sent forth a dull, metallic sound.