het had got his clothes on again, he gave
vent to this exclamation:

"You, my good fellow, will be of use for our experiments."

What experiments? They might inject phosphorus into him, and then shut
him up in a cellar, in order to see whether he would emit fire through
the nostrils.

But how were they to inject it? and furthermore, they could not get
anyone to sell them phosphorus.

They thought of putting him under a pneumatic bell, of making him inhale
gas, and of giving him poison to drink. All this, perhaps, would not be
funny! Eventually, they thought the best thing they could do was to
apply a steel magnet to his spinal marrow.

Bouvard, repressing his emotion, handed some needles on a plate to
Pecuchet, who fixed them against the vertebrae. They broke, slipped, and
fell on the ground. He took others, and quickly applied them at random.
The dog burst his bonds, passed like a cannon-ball through the window,
ran across the yard to the vestibule, and presented himself in the
kitchen.

Germaine screamed when she saw him soaked with blood, and with twine
round his paws.

Her masters, who had followed him, came in at the same moment. He made
one spring and disappeared.

The old servant turned on them.

"This is another of your tomfooleries, I'm sure! And my kitchen, too!
It's nice! This perhaps will drive him mad! People are in jail who are
not as bad as you!"

They got back to the laboratory in order to examine the magnetic
needles.

Not one of them had the least particle of the filings drawn off.

Then Germaine's assumption made them uneasy. He might get rabies, come
back unawares, and make a dash at them.

Next day they went making inquiries everywhere, and for many years they
turned up a by-path whenever they saw in the open country a dog at all
resembling this one.

Their other experiments were unsuccessful. Contrary to the statements in
the text-books, the pigeons which they bled, whether their stomachs were
full or empty, died in the same space of time. Kittens sunk under water
perished at the end of five minutes; and a goose, which they had stuffed
with madder, presented periostea that were perfectly white.

The question of nutrition puzzled them.

How did it happen that the same juice is produced by bones, blood,
lymph, and excrementitious materials? But one cannot follow the
metamorphoses of an article of food. The man who uses only one of them
is chemically equal to him who absorbs seve