stammered. He began groping in his coat-tails and, before the Viceroy
knew what was about to happen, he had tipped a bagful of his powder into
the big silver ash-tray.

"J-j-judge for yourself, Sir," said Mellish. "Y' Excellency shall judge
for yourself! Absolutely infallible, on my honor."

He plunged the lighted end of his cigar into the powder, which began to
smoke like a volcano, and send up fat, greasy wreaths of copper-colored
smoke. In five seconds the room was filled with a most pungent and
sickening stench--a reek that took fierce hold of the trap of your
windpipe and shut it. The powder then hissed and fizzed, and sent out
blue and green sparks, and the smoke rose till you could neither see,
nor breathe, nor gasp. Mellish, however, was used to it.

"Nitrate of strontia," he shouted; "baryta, bone-meal, etcetera!
Thousand cubic feet smoke per cubic inch. Not a germ could live--not a
germ, Y' Excellency!"

But His Excellency had fled, and was coughing at the foot of the stairs,
while all Peterhoff hummed like a hive. Red Lancers came in, and the
Head Chaprassi, who speaks English, came in, and mace-bearers came in,
and ladies ran downstairs screaming "fire;" for the smoke was drifting
through the house and oozing out of the windows, and bellying along the
verandahs, and wreathing and writhing across the gardens. No one could
enter the room where Mellish was lecturing on his Fumigatory, till that
unspeakable powder had burned itself out.

Then an Aide-de-Camp, who desired the V. C., rushed through the rolling
clouds and hauled Mellish into the hall. The Viceroy was prostrate with
laughter, and could only waggle his hands feebly at Mellish, who was
shaking a fresh bagful of powder at him.

"Glorious! Glorious!" sobbed his Excellency. "Not a germ, as you justly
observe, could exist! I can swear it. A magnificent success!"

Then he laughed till the tears came, and Wonder, who had caught the real
Mellishe snorting on the Mall, entered and was deeply shocked at the
scene. But the Viceroy was delighted, because he saw that Wonder would
presently depart. Mellish with the Fumigatory was also pleased, for he
felt that he had smashed the Simla Medical "Ring."

. . . . . . . . .

Few men could tell a story like His Excellency when he took the trouble,
and the account of "my dear, good Wonder's friend with the powder"
went the round of Simla, and flippant folk made Wonder unhappy by the