sitting, keeping the palms of his hands on the seat beside his hips
until he felt his feet touch the floor. Then he darted at a book-shelf,
pulled down a ponderous tome, flapped it open in a clear space on the
floor, and dropped on his knees to consult it.

After turning a leaf or two he found what he was after, read down the
page, keeping a finger on the lines, and, having finished his reading,
jumped to his feet and hurried back to the stool, on which he mounted so
quickly that it was impossible to see how he managed it--without an
upset. Instantly he made a new diagram, and then fell to figuring
furiously on the pad, making his pencil gyrate so fast that its upper
end vibrated like the wing of a dragon-fly.

At last he threw down the pencil, and, encircling his knees with his
clasped arms, sank in a heap on the stool. The lids dropped over his
shining eyes, and he became buried in thought.

When he reopened his eyes and unbent his brows, his gaze happened to be
directed toward a row of curious big photographs which ran like a
pictured frieze round the upper side of the wall of the room. A casual
observer might have thought that the little man had been amusing himself
by photographing the explosions of fireworks on a Fourth of July night;
but it was evident by his expression that these singular pictures had no
connection with civic pyrotechnics, but must represent something of
incomparably greater importance, and, in fact, of stupendous import.

The little man's face took on a rapt look, in which wonder and fear
seemed to be blended. With a sweep of his hand he included the whole
series of photographs in a comprehensive glance, and then, settling his
gaze upon a particularly bizarre object in the center, he began to speak