What may appear very extraordinary to the lay mind will doubtless prove fully explainable by scientists.
Come in, come in." The old man shut the door behind her, and led her along a dark passage, into a large apartment, whose ceiling was the roof of the building.
At first sight it seemed in amazing disorder.

Huge as it was, it was cluttered with curious shaped machines and instruments.

A twisted conglomeration of glass tubing, bent into fantastic tangles, stood on a central table, and had evidently been occupying the Professor's attention at the time he was interrupted.

The place was lined with shelving, where the walls were not occupied by cupboards, and every shelf was burdened with bottles and apparatus of different kinds.
Whatever care Professor Seigfried took of his apparatus, he seemed to have little for his furniture.

There was hardly a decent chair in the room, except one deep arm-chair, covered with a tiger's skin, in which the Professor evidently took his ease while meditating or watching the progress of an experiment.