The Doings of Raffles Haw

Raffles Haw led the way through the front door, and crossing over the graveled drive pushed open the outer door of the laboratory -- the same through which the McIntyres had seen the packages conveyed from the wagon. On passing through it Robert found that they were not really within the building, but merely in a large bare ante-chamber, around the walls of which were stacked the very objects which had aroused his curiosity and his father's speculations. All mystery had gone from them now, however, for while some were still wrapped in their sackcloth coverings, others had been undone, and revealed themselves as great pigs of lead.

"There is my raw material," said Raffles Haw carelessly, nodding at the heap. "Every Saturday I have a wagon-load sent up, which serves me for a week, but we shall need to work double tides when Laura and I are married, and we get our great schemes under way. I have to be very careful about the quality of the lead, for, of course, every impurity is reproduced in the gold."

A heavy iron door led into the inner chamber. Haw unlocked it, but only to disclose a second one about five feet further on.

"This flooring is all disconnected at night," he remarked. "I have no doubt that there is a good deal of gossip in the servants'-hall about this sealed chamber, so I have to guard myself against some inquisitive ostler or too adventurous butler."

The inner door admitted them into the laboratory, a high, bare, whitewashed room with a glass roof. At one end was the furnace and boiler, the iron mouth of which was closed, though the fierce red light beat through the cracks, and a dull roar sounded through the building. On either side innumerable huge Leyden jars stood ranged in rows, tier topping tier, while above them were columns of Voltaic cells. Robert's eyes, as he glanced around, lit on vast wheels, complicated networks of wire, stands, test-tubes, colored bottles, graduated glasses, Bunsen burners, porcelain insulators, and all the varied debris of a chemical and electrical workshop.

"Come across here," said Raffles Haw, picking his way among the heaps of metal, the coke, the packing-cases, and the carboys of acid. "Yours is the first foot except my own which has ever penetrated to this room since the workmen left it. My servants carry the lead into the ante-room, but come no further. The furnace can be cleaned and stoked from without. I employ a fellow to do nothing else. Now take a look in here."