shrinking as the plank roof was hammered by several mammoth
stones of ice. "One of those chunks of ice would crack a
fellow's skull just as easy!"

Yet the next instant he was out in the driving storm, eagerly
snatching at a brace of those frozen marvels, heedless of his own
risk or of the warning shouts sent after him by those
cooler-brained comrades.

Thunder crashed in wildest unison with almost blinding sheets of
lightning, the rain and hail falling thicker and heavier than
ever for a few moments; but then, as suddenly as it had come, the
storm passed on, leaving but a few scattered drops to fetch up
the rear.

"Isn't that pretty nearly what people call a cloudburst, uncle
Phaeton?" asked Bruno, curiously watching that receding mass of
what from their present standpoint looked like vapour.

"Those wholly ignorant of meteorological phenomena might so
pronounce, perhaps, but never one who has given the matter either
thought or study," promptly responded the professor, in no wise
loth to give a free lecture, no matter how brief it might be,
perforce. "It is merely nature seeking to restore a disturbed
equilibrium; a current of colder air, in search of a temporary
vacuum, caused by--"

"But isn't that just what produces cy--tornadoes, though?"
interrupted Waldo, with scant politeness.