"You, my good fellow, will be of use for our experiments."
What experiments? They might inject phosphorus into him, and then shut him up in a cellar, in order to see whether he would emit fire through the nostrils.
But how were they to inject it? and furthermore, they could not get anyone to sell them phosphorus.
They thought of putting him under a pneumatic bell, of making him inhale gas, and of giving him poison to drink. All this, perhaps, would not be funny! Eventually, they thought the best thing they could do was to apply a steel magnet to his spinal marrow.
Bouvard, repressing his emotion, handed some needles on a plate to Pécuchet, who fixed them against the vertebræ. They broke, slipped, and fell on the ground. He took others, and quickly applied them at random. The dog burst his bonds, passed like a cannon-ball through the window, ran across the yard to the vestibule, and presented himself in the kitchen.
Germaine screamed when she saw him soaked with blood, and with twine round his paws.
Her masters, who had followed him, came in at the same moment. He made one spring and disappeared.
The old servant turned on them.
"This is another of your tomfooleries, I'm sure! And my kitchen, too! It's nice! This perhaps will drive him mad! People are in jail who are not as bad as you!"
They got back to the laboratory in order to examine the magnetic needles.