"Does anyone smell a very strong smell of some gas--hydrocyanic gas,
I suppose? Where is it coming from? We pasted up all the windows and
doors," I added, rising from my chair.
Everybody now sniffed in turn, and all declared that the smell grew
stronger and stronger.
Suddenly both I and Veronica gave a shout together.
[Illustration: "'WONDER YOU'RE NOT DONE FOR ENTIRELY,' SAID THEY,
HAULING HIM OUT BY HIS BLANKET AND THE HAIR OF HIS HEAD."]
"Veronica! Everybody!" I cried. "We pasted up the windows and doors
and forgot to shut the ventilators of the chimneys. Every bit of gas
has escaped! All our trouble has been for nothing. And as for your
death throes, Mr. H----, well, I don't want to be rude, but it has all
been----"
"_Bunkum!_" finished Willy-Nilly. "Church bells and all, old chap!"
* * * * *
At eve we re-entered the cottage--cautiously at first, then more boldly.
Nothing had happened--nothing at all!
Flies buzzed in hundreds around us as if they had enjoyed the nice
aromatic bath they had had. Every scrap of gas had gaily escaped up the
wide chimneys. It was two in the morning before we had got the cottage
shipshape again, and the breakages and general damage would be hard to
calculate.
"I've done with the Simple Life," said Mr. H----, the erstwhile hero of
this memorable day. "If you don't mind, I think I'll leave. There's not
enough repose about the life, don't you know."
"And I, too," said the MacPhairson. "It's too expensive! Me Axminster's
ruined, me bagpipes have gone to glory, and me tent's in smithereens."
So these two have left.
As for those of us who still remain at Simplicity Hall, we have decided
to leave the "moss--quitoes" and "etceteras" alone, hoping that, as we
mean to sleep in the tents till the Rand winter comes on, we may in the
end starve them out.
+The End.+
[Illustration: