and the snuffers have gone into curiosity cases in
museums along with the clumsy tinder-boxes of the past.

But that is to do with the wick, though I daresay some chemist or
student of combustion gave the first hint to the maker about how to
contrive the burning away of the unpleasant snuff.

Let us go back to the candle itself, or rather to the tallow of which it
was made.

Now, your analytical chemist is about the most inquisitive person under
the sun. Bluebeard's wife was a baby to him. Why, your A C would have
pulled the Blue Chamber all to bits, and the key too, so as to see what
they were made of. He is always taking something to pieces. For
instance, quite lately gas tar was gas tar, and we knew that it was
black and sticky, good for palings and horribly bad for our clothes,
when, on hot, sunny days, we climbed over the said palings. But, all at
once, the A C took gas tar in hand to see what it was made of, and the
result is--what? I must not keep Vince and you waiting to tell all--in
fact, I don't know, but may suggest a little. Gas tar now means
brilliant aniline dyes, and sweet scents, and flavours that we cannot
tell from pears and almonds, and ammonia and carbolic preparations good
for the destruction of disease germs. But when the A C attacked the
tallow of the candle he astonished us more.

For, so to speak, he took the tallow, and he said to himself, Now,
here's tallow--an unpleasant animal fat: let's see what it is made of.

Years ago I should have at once told him that it was grease, obtained by
melting down the soft parts of an animal. But the A C would have said
to me: Exactly; but what is the grease made of?

Then he began making tests and analysing, with the result that out of
candle fat he distilled a beautifully clear white, intensely sweet
fluid, and made a name for it: glycerine, from the Greek for "sweet,"
for which, as Captain Cuttle would have said, consult your lexicon.

Then our friend the chemist tested the glycerine, and tried if it would
burn; but it would not burn in the least, and he naturally enough said,
Well, that stuff is no good for candles, so it may be extracted from the
tallow. To make a long dissertation short, that was done at once, and
the result was that, instead of the new tallow candles being soft, they
were found to be hard, and to burn more clearly. Then chemicals were
added, and they became harder still, and were called composites.

That was the begi