I put the newspaper carefully by, and then turned my mind to the consideration of quite another subject--namely, the contents of my parchment documents.

The first one I opened was that containing the private instructions of Heliobas to myself for the preservation of my own health, and the cultivation of the electric force within me.

These were so exceedingly simple, and yet so wonderful in their simplicity, that I was surprised.

They were based upon the plainest and most reasonable common-sense arguments--easy enough for a child to understand.

Having promised never to make them public, it is impossible for me to give the slightest hint of their purport; but I may say at once, without trespassing the bounds of my pledged word, that if these few concise instructions were known and practised by everyone, doctors would be entirely thrown out of employment, and chemists' shops would no longer cumber the streets.