s with such devices in securing a
butterfly or a grasshopper or a frog or any animate specimen except man?
Certainly not; we capture and etherize them."

He glanced about the room and beckoned us with his finger.

"I have lately had my eye upon the gas man," he said in a low tone. He
closed one eye impressively.

"Ah!" said Billings, his mouth dropping open wide.

"The individual who comes at intervals to take the quarters from the
slot meter. H'm, fine subject, gentlemen!"

"Great!" agreed Billings.

"Ripping idea," I tried as a reply.

The professor clasped his fingers tightly and rubbed his thumbs one over
the other. He brightened visibly.

"The party has to go down upon his knees and stoop behind the end of the
tub in the bath-room," he continued. "It was my thought that while in
that advantageous position the sudden, quick application of a Turkish
bath towel saturated in ether would--Eh? Do you follow me?"

"Devilish clever, you know," I said. I had already selected this for
reply for this time.

Billings failed to come up. He just stared hard, rolled his eyes and ran
his finger around under his collar.

The professor, in the act of taking another pinch from my shirt front,
paused with a little jerk. Then his great head shot forward in front of
his rigid neck--so suddenly, by Jove, that I reached out to try to catch
it, don't you know. He made just two strides to the table, ten feet
away, and pounced upon the pajamas with obviously trembling hands.

And behind his back Billings relapsed into an arm-chair and fanned
himself with a magazine.

His head dropped back, and upon his fat face was a what-you-call-it
smile of peace. He closed his eyes for an instant.

"Suffering Thomas cats! At last!" I heard him murmur.

CHAPTER XVIII

I RECEIVE A SHOCK

The professor fumblingly sought through his pockets, and producing a
pair of spectacles with phenomenally large lenses, adjusted them
shakily.

He bent over the pajamas eagerly.

"Impossible! And yet, it is, it is!" he muttered. "I would know the
weave among a thousand. It is hers undoubtedly, undoubtedly--the lost
silk of Si-Ling-Chi! How comes it here?"

He glared around rather wildly at each of us in turn. Without waiting
for a reply, he whisked back to the pajamas, and fishing out a thick
magnifying lens, scrutinized the garments closely. It seemed that he
would certainly nod his big head off its jolly hinge; and his quick side
glances