"When will it be done?" she eagerly asked. "If there's any chance of it
in my time, I think I'll leave off reading, and wait for it!"

"Well, perhaps in another thousand years or so--"

"Then there's no use waiting!", said my Lady. "Let's sit down.
Uggug, my pet, come and sit by me!"

"Anywhere but by me!" growled the Sub-warden. "The little wretch always
manages to upset his coffee!"

I guessed at once (as perhaps the reader will also have guessed, if,
like myself, he is very clever at drawing conclusions) that my Lady was
the Sub-Warden's wife, and that Uggug (a hideous fat boy, about the
same age as Sylvie, with the expression of a prize-pig) was their son.
Sylvie and Bruno, with the Lord Chancellor, made up a party of seven.

[Image...A portable plunge-bath]

"And you actually got a plunge-bath every morning?" said the Sub-Warden,
seemingly in continuation of a conversation with the Professor.
"Even at the little roadside-inns?"

"Oh, certainly, certainly!" the Professor replied with a smile on his
jolly face. "Allow me to explain. It is, in fact, a very simple problem
in Hydrodynamics. (That means a combination of Water and Strength.)
If we take a plunge-bath, and a man of great strength (such as myself)
about to plunge into it, we have a perfect example of this science.
I am bound to admit," the Professor continued, in a lower tone and with
downcast eyes, "that we need a man of remarkable strength. He must be