"Yes," said Lapham, "but I hadn't heard of Plantation
Bitters then, and I hadn't seen any of the fellow's labels.
I set to work and I got a man down from Boston; and I
carried him out to the farm, and he analysed it--made
a regular Job of it. Well, sir, we built a kiln, and we
kept a lot of that paint-ore red-hot for forty-eight hours;
kept the Kanuck and his family up, firing. The presence
of iron in the ore showed with the magnet from the start;
and when he came to test it, he found out that it
contained about seventy-five per cent. of the peroxide
of iron."

Lapham pronounced the scientific phrases with a sort
of reverent satisfaction, as if awed through his pride
by a little lingering uncertainty as to what peroxide was.
He accented it as if it were purr-ox-EYED; and Bartley
had to get him to spell it.

"Well, and what then?" he asked, when he had made a note
of the percentage.

"What then?" echoed Lapham. "Well, then, the fellow set
down and told me, 'You've got a paint here,' says he,
'that's going to drive every other mineral paint out of
the market. Why' says he, 'it'll drive 'em right into
the Back Bay!' Of course, I didn't know what the Back Bay
was then, but I begun to open my eyes; thought I'd had 'em
open before, but I guess I hadn't. Says he, 'That paint
has got hydraulic cement in it, and it can stand fire
and water and acids;' he named over a lot of things.