"Holy cat!" shouted the cartoonist--"Poison gas!"

"Nix!" said Bleak, revealing Quimbleton's secret in his
excitement. "Gooseberry bombs. Every chuff that inhales it will be
properly soused. Oh, boy, some story! Look at the Bish! He's got a
snootful already--his face has turned black!"

"The whole crowd has turned black," said the cartoonist, almost
falling off his perch in a frantic effort to see more clearly
through the olive haze that filled the street.

It was true. Above the thousands of white figures, as they emerged
from the intoxicating cloud-bank of gooseberry gas, grinned
ghastly, inhuman, blackened faces, with staring goggle eyes. The
Bishop was most frightful of all. His horse was prancing and
swaying wildly, and the Bishop's transformed features were
diabolic. His whole profile had altered, seemed black and
shapeless as the face of a tadpole. The amazing truth burst upon
Bleak. Chuff and his paraders were wearing gas-masks. These were
what they had carried in their knapsacks. Indomitable Chuff, who
had foreseen everything!

"Poor Quimbleton," said Bleak. "This will break his heart!"

"His neck too, I fancy," said one of the others, pointing to the
sky, and indeed one of the three planes was seen falling
tragically to earth behind the tower of the City Hall.

The cloud of gas was rapidly drifting off down the Boulevard, and