safety, and yet its effects are as inevitable as death," saying which,
he took out of his pocket and held up to the light a bottle filled with
a clear colorless liquid like water.

"You could pour that on the fire," he said, "with no other effect than
to put out the blaze. You might place it under a steam hammer and crush
the bottle to powder, yet no explosion would follow. It is as harmless
as water in its present condition."

"How, then," said the Minister, "do you deal with it?"

Again the man hesitated.

"I am almost afraid to tell you," he said; "and if I could not
demonstrate to your entire satisfaction that what I say is true, it
would be folly for me to say what I am about to say. If I were to take
this bottle and cut a notch in the cork, and walk with it neck
downwards along the Boulevard des Italiens, allowing this fluid to fall
drop by drop on the pavement, I could walk in that way in safety
through every street in Paris. If it rained that day nothing would
happen. If it rained the next or for a week nothing would happen, but
the moment the sun came out and dried the moisture, the light step of a
cat on any pavement over which I had passed would instantly shatter to
ruins the whole of Paris."

"Impossible!" cried the Minister, an expression of horror coming into
his face.

"I knew you would say that. Therefore I ask you to come with me to the
country, where I can prove the truth of what I allege. While I carry