"You mean to try it, then?" "Of course. Old Noakes has some toy balloons." "But what about the hydrogen? It doesn’t smell, does it?" "No. Why?" "Only that I forget all my chemistry except the stinks. How do you make it?" "By the action of an acid on a metal. Don’t you remember Zn + H2SO4 = ZnSO4 + H2? Iron will do as well." "That’s easy enough, then. But you’ll want retorts, wash bottles, pneumatic troughs, and goodness knows what else. Bang goes the rest of your cash, Bob." "Nonsense! Mother Trenchard has some old pickle bottles, and we’re not out to make a specially pure gas. All we’ll have to buy will be a little acid, a few feet of glass tubing, and a rubber cork or two. Four or five shillings will buy the lot. We shall have to go to Weymouth for them." "Righto! That’s a day off to-morrow." The morning post brought a letter from Aunt Caroline enclosing a list of foods which she wished Mr. Noakes to stock. Templeton read it solemnly, and handed it to Eves. "I say, Mrs. Trenchard, what do you think of this?" cried Eves. "Things Bob’s aunt is going to lecture about, you know. Haricot beans——" "They want a deal of cooking, Mr. Eves," said Mrs. Trenchard. "You must soak ’em overnight, and boil ’em hours and hours. I have my doubts whether the village folk can spare the time." "Well, here’s dried peas." "Do ’ee think the women ’ll use ’em dried when the shucks are full of green? What can Miss Caroline be thinking of?" "Tinned eggs, then." "Lawk-a-mussy, I was silly enough to buy one o’ they tins once, and when I opened it—there now, never in my life did I come so near fainting afore, and me not a fainting sort, the smell was so terrible. If that be the kind of thing Miss Caroline’s cook do give her, ’tis time I was back in my old place, that it be." Eves laughed as he handed the list back to Templeton. "There are a dozen more things," he said; "if they’re all as good, old man, Aunt Caroline will get a shock when she’s heckled." "Bless ’ee, sir, and who’ll be so bold?" said Mrs. Trenchard. "Folks ’ll listen, ay sure, as meek as lambs; but buy them things—never in the world." "Well, Bob, you must take the list to Noakes. You must do something for your tenner. Tell you what: I’ll go to Weymouth for the chemicals and things. By the time I’m back you’ll have seen Noakes and got the bottles and other things ready. Noakes wouldn’t serve me, I’m sure." So it was arranged. Eves hurried through his breakfast and just caught the carrier’s cart that conveyed passengers to the junction. Templeton finished leisurely, and then, not much liking his job, walked down to the village to interview Noakes. As he came to the shop door he heard Noakes addressing a customer. "No, I tell ’ee, you can’t have no sugar without you buy tea and bacon." "But ’twas only the day afore yesterday I bought my quarter of tea, sir," said a woman’s voice, plaintively; "and I must have sugar to stew my plums for the children’s dinner."