The prussic acid was all sealed up in a most important manner with huge Government seals, and the chemist said good-bye to us as if he would be surprised to see us again.
You get into the train to come here at a level crossing where there is no station, and when you get out at another crossing you yell, as I said before, to the engine-driver, and if he can manage it he stops, though sometimes he can't stop till he has got some way off. This happened with the vitriol and things. They were strewed along the level crossing, and when the train flew past too far they had to be hastily picked up, and as the vitriol was in ordinary whisky-bottles (the corks put in loose, so that it shouldn't splash when we wanted to open them) it was an awful business.
"Hi, there!" said Six-and-eightpence to the guard, who, blithely unconscious of the nature of the bottles he was sweeping up off the line into his arms, began putting them down with bangs close to an old lady with several young children round her. "Hi! Easy! That's vitriol!"
"And pray, sir," said the old lady, who seemed convinced that the only purpose vitriol could have been invented for was to throw into people's faces, "and may I ask what you are doing with vitriol here? Guard, what does all this mean? Heaven knows, this country is infested with enough criminals without our being obliged to travel with vitriol-throwing ruffians!"
"My dear madam," said Six-and-eightpence, politely, "who said that I intended throwing this vitriol at anyone?"
"Of course you intend throwing it at someone!" said the old lady, indignantly. "Do you think I was born yesterday, sir? Do you think I never read the papers? Do you think I don't know what vitriol is for? Guard, stop the train and summon a policeman! At once!"
Luckily we arrived at our stopping-place in five minutes, or what would have happened I don't know. Six-and-eightpence had retreated into the extreme corner of the carriage, clasping the vitriol bottles in his arms and in vain entreating the old lady not to attack him tooth and nail, or she certainly would get the stuff into her face.
We were thankful to find ourselves out on the open veldt.
February 20th.—It's late at night, and I am writing up this record of the doings of Simplicity Hall because by to-morrow evening I may either be unconscious or be sitting contemplating the dead bodies of everybody else, for we all get up very early to-morrow morning to fumigate this house with hydrocyanic gas.
Every chink has to be closed up to make it effective, and for four mortal hours this evening we have all been cutting brown paper into strips and standing on ladders and chairs pasting up the very badly-fitting doors and windows of this abode so that none of the precious and deadly gas shall escape.