"The binzole, you see, Ma'am, is so thin that the hyder-rometer drops right down over head an' ears in it; but as it gits to be ile, it comes heavier an' stouter, an' kind uv buoys it up, until at lin'th an' at last the 60° line comes crapin' up in sight. Thin I thry it by the fire tist. I puts some in a pan over a sperit-lamp, and keep a-thryin' an' a-thryin' it wid a thermometer; an' whin it's 'most a-bilin', I puts a lighted match to the ile, an' if it blazes, there's still too much binzole, an' I lets it run a bit longer. But if all's right, I cuts off the binzole, and the nixt run is ile sech as you see it. The longer it runs, the heavier it grows; and whin it gits so that the hyder-rometer stands at 42°, I cuts off agin. Thin the next run is heavy ile, thick and yaller, and that doesn't come in here at all, but is drawn from the still, and mixed wid crude ile, and stilled over agin; and whin no more good's to be got uv it, it's mighty good along wid the binzole to keep the pot a-bilin' in beyant."
"You don't use the fire test in this building, I presume, do you?"
"Indade, no, Ma'am. There's niver a light nor yit a lanthern allowed here."
"But you run all night. How do you get light in this room?" inquired Mr. Williams.
"From widout. Did niver ye mind the windys uv this house?"
And the professor, dismounting from his stool, led the way to the outside of the building, where he pointed to two picturesque little windows near the roof, each furnished with a deep hood and a shelf, as if Tommy had been expected to devote his leisure hours to the cultivation of mignonette.
"See now!"
And the burly lecturer pointed impressively to a laborer at this moment approaching with a large lighted lantern in each hand. These, placed upon the mignonette shelves, and snugly protected from wind and rain by the deep hoods, threw a clear light into the test-room, and brought out in grotesque distinctness the arabesque pattern wrought with dust and oil upon Tommy's broad visage.
"And that's how we gits light, Sir," remarked the professor, in conclusion, as, with a dignified salutation of farewell, he disappeared in the still-house.
Admonished by the lanterns and the fading glory of the west, Miselle and her host now bent their steps homeward, deferring, like Scheherezade, "still finer and more wonderful stories until the next morning."