Still looking down, Turnbull lifted the chair an inch or two from
the ground. Then he suddenly swung it above his head and sent it
at the inquiring doctor with an awful crash which sent one of its
wooden legs loose along the floor and crammed the doctor gasping
into a corner. MacIan gave a great shout, snatched up the loose
chair-leg, and, rushing on the other doctor, felled him with a
blow. Twenty attendants rushed to capture the rebels; MacIan
flung back three of them and Turnbull went over on top of one,
when from behind them all came a shriek as of something quite
fresh and frightful.

Two of the three passages leading out of the hall were choked
with blue smoke. Another instant and the hall was full of the fog
of it, and red sparks began to swarm like scarlet bees.

"The place is on fire!" cried Quayle with a scream of indecent
terror. "Oh, who can have done it? How can it have happened?"

A light had come into Turnbull's eyes. "How did the French
Revolution happen?" he asked.

"Oh, how should I know!" wailed the other.

"Then I will tell you," said Turnbull; "it happened because some
people fancied that a French grocer was as respectable as he
looked."

Even as he spoke, as if by confirmation, old Mr. Durand
re-entered the smoky room quite placidly, wiping the petroleum