Gas tar now means brilliant aniline dyes, and sweet scents, and flavours that we cannot tell from pears and almonds, and ammonia and carbolic preparations good for the destruction of disease germs.

But when the A C attacked the tallow of the candle he astonished us more.
For, so to speak, he took the tallow, and he said to himself, Now, here's tallow--an unpleasant animal fat: let's see what it is made of.
Years ago I should have at once told him that it was grease, obtained by melting down the soft parts of an animal.

But the A C would have said to me: Exactly; but what is the grease made of?
Then he began making tests and analysing, with the result that out of candle fat he distilled a beautifully clear white, intensely sweet fluid, and made a name for it: glycerine, from the Greek for "sweet," for which, as Captain Cuttle would have said, consult your lexicon.
Then our friend the chemist tested the glycerine, and tried if it would burn; but it would not burn in the least, and he naturally enough said, Well, that stuff is no good for candles, so it may be extracted from the tallow.

To make a long dissertation short, that was done at once, and the result was that, instead of the new tallow candles being soft, they were found to be hard, and to burn more clearly.

Then chemicals were added, and they became harder still, and were called composites.
That was the beginning of the improvements, which subject I must carry no further, but return to our hungry lad, who, hearing the reading going on, would not interrupt his mother, but took up his candle and went to the larder to investigate for himself.
There was bread and butter, and bread and cheese, and a small piece of mutton--but this last was raw; and Vince was about to turn to the bread and cheese when his eyes lighted upon a wedge of cold apple dumpling, which he seized upon as the very thing, bore off to his bedroom, after putting his head in at the parlour door to say good-night, ate with the greatest of gusto, and then, thoroughly drowsy, tumbled into bed.
The next minute, as it seemed most vividly to Vince, the new rope that Mike took with them to the tempest-torn ridge above the Scraw was cutting into his chest and compressing it so that he could hardly breathe.