Page:The Master of Mysteries (1912).djvu/254

 Then, yawning, he took off his coat, rolled up his shirt-sleeves, and sat down to a table under the electric light. Here he laid out the pieces of the cylinder he had found, and with liquid glue started laboriously to piece them together. One by one he fastened them and warmed them over a Bunsen burner till they were dry. The work was long and arduous, and it was almost daylight before he had finished the job. The cylinder was now complete, except for an irregularly shaped hole at one extremity. With a penknife he trimmed the protruding glue, and then examined the whole through a magnifying-glass. Not till it appeared to satisfy his inspection did he desist. But at last the thing was done, and without undressing he threw himself on the great velvet couch under a trophy of arms and fell sound asleep.

His pet cat Deodar, a handsome black Angora, awakened him at nine o'clock by clawing at his sleeve, and Astro jumped up and went to the telephone. A half-hour later, tubbed, and clad in his flowing red silk robe, his turban and its moonstone clasp on his head, he sipped his thick black coffee and munched his rolls as he read in the morning paper the accounts of the suicide of Edward Burbank. Nothing new to interest him had transpired.

As he sat there the bell rang, and soon a boy in buttons entered, carrying a parcel. Astro opened it, and took from a box a phonograph, which he set on the table. He was a bit excited now, as he fitted his mended cylinder to the drum and started the clockwork.

The wheels whirred; a harsh dry voice announced a song by a well-known comedian. After a preliminary