CHAPTER IV


Blow-pipes and retorts, crucibles and jars, porcelain and glass vessels,
of all odd sorts and shapes, confronted them on tables and shelves, and
seated before small furnaces, with gauze protectors for their faces and
metal ones for their knees, and queer little rubber gloves for their
hands, were the very queerest of all the elves Leo had yet seen. They
were thinner and much less muscular than the miners and stone-polishers,
with eyes too large and legs too small for their bodies, so that they
resembled nothing so much as spiders.

"See how in the pursuit of the beautiful one can lose all beauty," said
Knops, confidentially.

"How hot it is here!" said Leo, gasping for breath.

"Yes, my dear fellow, there's no doubt of that; the heat is tremendous.
Now some of your thermometers go no higher than one hundred and thirty,
while ours can ascend to three and four hundred; that is, for the common
air of our dwellings. Of course the heat demanded by many of our
experiments is practically incalculable; for instance--"

"Oh, get me out of this!" entreated Leo.

"Here, step into this niche, put your mouth to this opening"--and Knops