A great many years before the period of this story Alton Academy manufactured its own illuminating gas from gasoline by means of a machine in the basement of Academy Hall. The machine was connected by pipe with a gasoline tank set in a covered pit some sixty feet from the building. One fine day there was trouble with the gasoline supply and one of the faculty members known as Old Grubby descended into the pit to investigate matters. Just what occurred down there was never known, but shortly after Old Grubby disappeared from sight he reappeared with vastly more celerity, and his reappearance was accompanied by a violent concussion that brought everyone rushing to the scene or to the dormitory windows. A fortunate few gained points of vantage in time to see the teacher’s ascent interrupted by the force of gravitation and to watch his return to earth. This happened at a point many feet distant from the crater that had once been a brick-lined pit, and was quite spectacular. Fortunately, aside from a severe shaking up, some contusions and a nervous shock, Old Grubby was uninjured, although just at first it seemed to the horrified spectators that he had suffered a direful fate, since he had gone into the pit with a luxuriant growth of dark hair on his head and had subsequently descended from his flight with his scalp as bare and polished as a pale-pink billiard ball! None was more horror-stricken than the unfortunate gentleman himself, however, when he realized his plight. Clapping both hands to his head, he broke loose from the solicitous rescuers and ran agitatedly around in circles. Such extraordinary behavior on the part of an ordinarily sane gentleman was naturally adjudged to be the result of temporary dementia produced by the accident, and so, of course, all those who had arrived on the scene took up the chase. Old Grubby dodged and eluded, giving vent to inarticulate ejaculations of dismay, and the chase might have continued for quite a while had he not finally, with a cry of relief and triumph, snatched a brown object from a lower branch of a tree, clapped it on his shining head and dashed for his room.