ned a fireplace, an easy-chair with a cushion, a table
on which stood two or three big bottles, a number of cigar-boxes on
the mantel, whisky Tantalus and a row of soda syphons. He shut the door
after me carefully.

"Well, here we are!" he said. "Going strong! Have a whisky, George?
No!--Wise man! Neither will I! You see me at it! At it--hard!"

"Hard at what?"

"Read it," and he thrust into my hand a label--that label that has
now become one of the most familiar objects of the chemist's shop, the
greenish-blue rather old-fashioned bordering, the legend, the name
in good black type, very clear, and the strong man all set about with
lightning flashes above the double column of skilful lies in red--the
label of Tono-Bungay. "It's afloat," he said, as I stood puzzling at
this. "It's afloat. I'm afloat!" And suddenly he burst out singing in
that throaty tenor of his--

"I'm afloat, I'm afloat on the fierce flowing tide, The ocean's my home
and my bark is my bride!

"Ripping song that is, George. Not so much a bark as a solution, but
still--it does! Here we are at it! By-the-by! Half a mo'! I've thought
of a thing." He whisked out, leaving me to examine this nuclear spot at
leisure while his voice became dictatorial without. The den struck me as
in its large grey dirty way quite unprecedented and extraordinary. The
bottles were all labelled simply A, B, C, and so forth, and that dear
old apparatus above, seen from this side, was even more patiently "on
the shelf" than when it had been used to impress Wimblehurst. I saw
nothing for it but to sit down in the chair and await my uncle's
explanations. I remarked a frock-coat with satin lapels behind the door;
there was a dignified umbrella in the corner and a clothes-brush and
a hat-brush stood on a side-table. My uncle returned in five minutes
looking at his watch--a gold watch--"Gettin' lunch-time, George," he
said. "You'd better come and have lunch with me!"

"How's Aunt Susan?" I asked.

"Exuberant. Never saw her so larky. This has bucked her up something
wonderful--all this."

"All what?"

"Tono-Bungay."

"What is Tono-Bungay?" I asked.

My uncle hesitated. "Tell you after lunch, George," he said. "Come
along!" and having locked up the sanctum after himself, led the way
along a narrow dirty pavement, lined with barrows and swept at times by
avalanche-like porters bearing burthens to vans, to Farringdon Street.
He hailed a passing cab superbly, and the cabman w