"How I can call to mind, too, her grizzly beard, like a well-used scrubbing brush, that left you in doubt as to whether she really could belong to our sex! Then her beetle brows overhanging her sockets like a dragoon's moustache, and all but concealing her small deeply-sunk and viperish eyes, which gleamed with envy, hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness." "There, did you see that flash!" exclaimed Dr. Bleedem. "Just wait a moment; here it comes." A second tremendous crash resounded, causing the window panes to revibrate and the whole house to rock to its foundations. "Lord have mercy upon us!" cried the hostess in extreme terror. "That is a judgment sent on you by old Madge for speaking ill of her," said Professor Cyanite. "Oh! hold your tongue, naughty man, do," said our hostess, half playfully, half in terror. "Here comes the rain in torrents. How it pours! Well, gentlemen, if you'll excuse me, I've got to attend to the house." "Certainly," cried several members at once, "and many thanks for your very interesting story." Our hostess curtseyed, said they were very welcome, and left the room. FOOTNOTES: [20] A better simile would be "as if charged with electricity," or "like sparks emitted from an electric machine," as this case, which is founded on fact, and which, together with other similar phenomena, is probably of electric origin. (_Vide_ Mrs. CROW'S "Nightside of Nature.") Yet we must bear in mind that we are speaking at a time before electricity created that furor in the world that succeeded the discoveries of Benjamin Franklin, and that it is only an unsophisticated country landlady who is speaking, whose science goes no further than the making of an apple pudding, roasting a leg of mutton, or frying a beefsteak. [Illustration] CHAPTER V. IN WHICH OCCURS MR. PARNASSUS' BALLAD--THE CHIEFTAIN'S DESTINY. "Wretched weather, eh?" remarked Mr. Oldstone. "We shall have to call for lights soon. Here, Cyanite, a game of chess, what do you say? A story from whom ever loses." "Thank you," replied the Professor, "but I have a letter to write which is of some importance." "Come now, Crucible, have at _you_," quoth Oldstone. "I have not played for years," replied Crucible, "and as I have no story wherewith to pay the penalty and am consequently out of practice and sure to lose and----" "What do you say, Blackdeed?" asked Oldstone. "Well, to say the truth," answered the chemist, "I find myself much in the same position as my friend Mr. Crucible, for were I to lose, an event which amounts to a dead certainty, I am perfectly sure I should not be able to pay the forfeit, even if I were to be imprisoned for it." "Perhaps you'll oblige me, Hardcase," said the antiquary. "Another time, thank you, Oldstone," replied the lawyer; "but the fact is that I've promised Bleedem a game of cards."