Now his wife was just consenting when the Peterkin family burst
in. You can imagine how mad the chemist was! He came near
throwing his cruciblethat was the name of his melting-potat their
heads. But he didn't. He listened as calmly as he could to the story
of how Mrs. Peterkin had put salt in her coffee.
At first he said he couldn't do anything about it; but when
Agamemnon said they would pay in gold if he would only go, he
packed up his bottles in a leather case, and went back with them
all.
First he looked at the coffee, and then stirred it. Then he put in a
little chlorate of potassium, and the family tried it all round; but it
tasted no better. Then he stirred in a little bichlorate of magnesia.
But Mrs. Peterkin didn't like that. Then he added some tartaric
acid and some hypersulphate of lime. But no; it was no better. "I
have it!" exclaimed the chemist,"a little ammonia is just the
thing!" No, it wasn't the thing at all.
Then he tried, each in turn, some oxalic, cyanic, acetic,
phosphoric, chloric, hyperchloric, sulphuric, boracic, silicic,
nitric, formic, nitrous nitric, and carbonic acids. Mrs. Peterkin
tasted each, and said the flavor was pleasant, but not precisely that
of coffee. So then he tried a little calcium, aluminum, barium, and
strontium, a little clear bitumen, and a half of a third of a
sixteenth of a grain of arsenic. This gave rather a pretty color; but
still Mrs.
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