"Why, there is something the matter!" said the doctor quickly. "You want to see me?" "To see you? Yes, of course," said the young man shaking hands hurriedly. "No, no, not professionally. I hurried on to Old Bones, but the servant said he had come to dine with you, so I jumped into a cab and made the fellow canter here." "Then you have come for a snack with us. Wish I'd known, and we'd have waited. Sit down, my lad. Why didn't you come sooner?" "Dinner?" cried the young man, ignoring the chair, and beginning to stride up and down the room, swinging his arms excitedly; "don't talk to me about dinner!" "Very well, little man," said the professor, smiling; "but don't jump quite out of your skin." The newcomer turned upon the speaker sharply, and stopping short stood pointing at him. "Hark at that fellow, doctor," he cried. "That's Old Bones all over. He's as cool as one of his dry mummies. Why, my news is enough to make any fellow with a heart jump out of his skin!" "Sit still, Bob," said the professor quietly; "the boy has made a discovery." "Yes, a discovery," cried the newcomer--"a discovery!" and he brought his hand down so heavily upon the dining table that the glasses jumped. "That's it," said the professor; "metaphorically speaking, he has been pouring sulphuric acid upon the carbonate of lime of his composition, and all this effervescence is the consequence. He'll be better soon. Now, Frank, boy, what is the discovery--something that will set the Thames on fire?" "Have you got a good appointment as chemist, Frank?" said the doctor. "Discovery--appointment!" cried the young man, with his voice breaking from the emotion he felt. "Something a thousand times better than either of those. It's the news of news, I tell you--Hal!" His two hearers sprang to their feet and rushed at him excitedly, each seizing a hand. "What about him?" cried the doctor. "Not dead?" shouted the professor. "No--no--no!" cried the young man wildly, and then his voice thoroughly broke, becoming almost inaudible as he tried to declare his news. "I can't bear it," he panted; "I can't bear it. Morris--Landon--don't take any notice of me--I've kept all this in for days, and now--now--Oh, tell me--is it true, or am I going mad?" The young man sank heavily into the chair to which his friends helped him, and then he lay back quivering, with his hands covering his face, while the doctor made a sign to his companion and went hurriedly into his consulting-room, where he turned up the gas and then opened a cabinet, from which he took down a stoppered bottle and a graduated glass, into which he carefully measured a small portion, half filled the glass from a table filter, and then hurried back into the dining-room. "Drink this, Frank, my boy," he said. "No, no; let me be. I shall soon come round." "Drink this, my lad," said the doctor sternly; "it is for your good."