Page:All the Year Round - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/141

 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 tem. 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 I had no sooner done this than Mr. Volt took possession of it; for I heard 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 ou 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,