DEVIL-PUZZLERS
very near, where the lightning and the thunder leap together out of the very air close about you, even as if you were in them. It was an unendurable burst of sound, and of the intense white sheety light of very near lightning. Dreadfully frightened, the poor little lady clung close to her husband. He, poor man, if possible yet more frightened, exhausted as he was by what he had been enduring, fainted dead away. Don't blame him: a cast-iron bull-dog might have fainted.
Mrs. Hicok, thinking that her husband was struck dead by the lightning, screamed terribly. Then she touched him; and, seeing what was really the matter, administered cold water from the pitcher on the table. Shortly he revived.
"Where is he?" he said.
"I don't know, love. I thought you were dead. He must have gone away. Did it strike the house?"
"Gone away? Thank God! Thank you, dear!" cried out the doctor.
Not knowing any adequate cause for so much emotion, she answered him—
"Now, love, don't you ever say women are not practical again. That was a practical question, you see. But didn't it strike the house? What a queer smell. Ozone: isn't that what you were telling me about? How funny, that lightning should have a smell!"
"I believe there's no doubt of it," observed Dr. Hicok. Mr. Apollo Lyon had really gone, though just how or when, nobody could say.
"My dear," said Dr. Hicok, "I do so like that bonnet of yours! I don't wonder it puzzled him. It would
[201]
