The Equinox (Volume I, Number VII)

PROFESSOR ZIRCON MURIEI. MADDox was a blonde frail piquant thing, a fluffy baby of nineteen easy summers. But she wasa hard-working orphan, too, with no relations but a semi-mythical brother on the Yukon who had not found enough gold to send her any; and she earned her living—two pounds a week—as violinist to the splendid tea-parties of the Hotelי1556011161? Her liking for Professor Zircon was little more than a child's, though the shaggy-headed old analyst told another story to his brother experts at the ΝΜ Office, And indeed, though her nature was incapable of great passion, what 5116 had she gave, and to the innocence of a child added a dog's fidelity and trust. Professor Zircon was a happy old man ; 116 called her his Chloride of Gold. Muriel means salt, you know, he would explain to the fellows at the Club, and salt is a compound of hydrochloric or muriatic acid—I wonder if we shall produce a little Zirconium Chloride! At this jest thus elaborated he was wont to laugh seven times a week; and trot happily back to his house in Kensington for dinner. Seven times a week he would let himself in through the laboratory and pretend surprise when he found Muriel reading a novelette in his own armchair. “What, what! and how the deuce did you get in?" or “Tut! tut! my dear madam, to what am I indebted for the honour of this visit?" or “I bega thousand pardons, madam, I really thought this was my house,” and Muriel, genuinely pleased and amused, would enter into the little comedy, 9: