“When will it be done?” she eagerly asked. “If there’s any chance of it in _my_ time, I think I’ll leave off reading, and wait for it!” “Well, perhaps in another thousand years or so——” “Then there’s no use waiting!” said my Lady. “Let’s sit down. Uggug, my pet, come and sit by me!” “Anywhere but by _me_!” growled the Sub-Warden. “The little wretch always manages to upset his coffee!” I guessed at once (as perhaps the reader will also have guessed, if, like myself, he is _very_ clever at drawing conclusions) that my Lady was the Sub-Warden’s wife, and that Uggug (a hideous fat boy, about the same age as Sylvie, with the expression of a prize-pig) was their son. Sylvie and Bruno, with the Lord Chancellor, made up a party of seven. [Illustration: A PORTABLE PLUNGE-BATH] “And you actually got a plunge-bath every morning?” said the Sub-Warden, seemingly in continuation of a conversation with the Professor. “Even at the little roadside-inns?” “Oh, certainly, certainly!” the Professor replied with a smile on his jolly face. “Allow me to explain. It is, in fact, a very simple problem in Hydrodynamics. (That means a combination of Water and Strength.) If we take a plunge-bath, and a man of great strength (such as myself) about to plunge into it, we have a perfect example of this science. I am bound to admit,” the Professor continued, in a lower tone and with downcast eyes, “that we need a man of _remarkable_ strength. He must be able to spring from the floor to about twice his own height, gradually turning over as he rises, so as to come down again head first.” “Why, you need a _flea_, not a _man_!” exclaimed the Sub-Warden. “Pardon me,” said the Professor. “This particular kind of bath is _not_ adapted for a flea. Let us suppose,” he continued, folding his table-napkin into a graceful festoon, “that this represents what is perhaps _the_ necessity of this Age—the Active Tourist’s Portable Bath. You may describe it briefly, if you like,” looking at the Chancellor, “by the letters A. T. P. B.” The Chancellor, much disconcerted at finding everybody looking at him, could only murmur, in a shy whisper, “Precisely so!” “One great advantage of this plunge-bath,” continued the Professor, “is that it requires only half-a-gallon of water——” “I don’t call it a _plunge_-bath,” His Sub-Excellency remarked, “unless your Active Tourist goes _right under_!” “But he _does_ go right under,” the old man gently replied. “The A. T. hangs up the P. B. on a nail—_thus_. He then empties the water-jug into it—places the empty jug below the bag—leaps into the air—descends head-first into the bag—the water rises round him to the top of the bag—and there you are!” he triumphantly concluded. “The A. T. is as much under water as if he’d gone a mile or two down into the Atlantic!” “And he’s drowned, let us say, in about four minutes——”