dinners in my fluid state. You dined with Volt
and with my wife.''

"Nonsense, Mark. Volt is dead, and you and
I buried him.''

"Tom, you don't understand. Will you promise
to listen, and not interrupt me any more?
I want to lay my case before you for a legal
opinion?"

Having rubbed my eyes, pinched myself, and
trod on a most painful bunion which I keep for
such emergencies, to prove I was not dreaming,
I consented to listen to the bottle: which proceeded
to deliver itself of this painful narrative.

"You are aware that Mr. Volt and I meditated
making an exchange of external ideas
—bodies—pro tern. Well; after nearly
a month's dietary, to bring our susceptibilities
to the requisite degree of fineness, we met
in this laboratory for the purpose of carrying
out the experiment. Before proceeding
to business. Mr. Volt informed me that, in
case of fatal results to himself, he had left
me the tower and all its contents by deed of
gift. This was very generous, as it appeared to
me, but not very reassuring. We then got our
still under way, and produced a great quantity
of the violet vapour of iodic ether. When we
had become thoroughly impregnated with its
fumes, we each took a stiff dose of ' hatchis.'
Now, whether Mr. Volt, through contriving to
sit nearer than I did to the heating apparatus
which gave out the vapour, inhaled more of it in
the time than I, or how otherwise it took place, I
do not know; but it is certain that he managed
to distil the spirit out of his body some minutes
before I was ready to leave mine. The consequence
was, that while his body remained
empty, waiting for its new tenant, his essence
wandered about the room. ' Be quick, for it's
awfully chilly,' his essence said to me. ' I am
as quick as I can be,' I retorted. As soon as
ever I felt myself loose, I disengaged myself
from my external idea. And l had no sooner done
this than Mr. Volt took possession of it; for I
him say to me, in my old voice, 'All right,
Mark; I'm in; how are you getting on? You
will scarcely credit the baseness of that man;
but how do you think he had occupied the time
till I was ready? If you will believe me, he
had gone over to his empty body and poured a
pint and a half of laudanum down its throat,
and killed it, so as to leave me nowhere to go
to! I could have cried with vexation; but being
vapour already, I didn't like to, in case of injuring
myself. I made several vigorous attempts
to condense myself back into my own
body; but my body was only made to accommodate
one, and Mr. Volt more than filled
it already. This accounts for its puffing out,
and being so smooth and sleek, now he occupies
it; it being a little tight for him. What is
to become of me?' I cried. Mr. Volt, who was
pretty comfortably settled in my body by this
time, replied, 'We'll soon settle that,' and he
went and fetched a great cold sheet of glass—
ugh!—and condensed me into this liquid
state, and poured me into this phial. You
see why the rascal made his property over
to me. It was only in order that, when he had
stolen my body, he might enjoy it himself. Now,
in all your professional experience, did you ever
meet with a case like mine?"

"Never," I returned.

"Very well, then. What is my remedy in
law against Mr. Volt?"

"Really," I said, "there is no precedent to
go by. I don't see what you can charge Mr.
Volt with."

"Charge him with!" he retorted, sharply.
"Why, with every crime in the statute book.
Begin with common assault. Isn't it a common
assault to beat a man to a jelly?"

"Of course it is."

"Then how much more to reduce a man to a
fluid state? What would he get for the common
assault?"

"Say a fine of forty shillings and costs."

"And when he has paid that, can't you
charge him with felony? Isn't it felony to steal
wooden legs and arms?"

"Undoubtedly."

"Then how much the more to steal real
legs and arms. He has got all mine. What
would he get for that?"

"Not more than a twelvemonth (it being his
first offence), if convicted," I said, with marked
emphasis on the " if."

"You can charge him next with forgery,
can't you? Presuming on stealing my body,
he has forged my name to cheques on my banking
account, besides embezzling the moneys in
my cash-box."

"That is an unquestionable offence."

"How much for the forgery?" he asked.

"About seven years' transportation."

"Then, again, he is living with my wife; it's
bigamy, and good for two years, at least."

"Scarcely bigamy on his part," I said, " since,
if your story stood in evidence, your wife would
be the bigamist, she having two husbands,
whereas Mr. Volt is not a married man."

"That's unfortunate; but you can make him
a co-respondent, can't you, and get damages out
of him, and then prosecute him again for paying
the damages out of my money? And then
you can charge him with suicide, for killing his
own body. What's the punishment for that?"

"Only to be buried, and he has been that;
or, if he has not, then he is not dead, and
cannot be charged with that offence."

"Make it murder, then. Indict him under
the name of Stedburn, to save trouble, and
charge him with the murder of Mr. Volt;
when he has been sentenced, get him recommended
to mercy, and transported for life, so
that he may come back with a ticket-of-leave
some day, and be sued in the civil courts under
a writ of ejectment for wrongly holding possession
of my body."

"All this is very well, my dear Mark," I
said, " if you could only prove your case, but
I am very much afraid you have no locus standi.
The question is, could you, as bottle, give such
evidence on these indictments as would satisfy
a jury?"

I heard the bottle murmur some reply,