312 CONCLUSION. 



it on a larger scale ; "but the gas, as he first formed it, had 

 many impurities combined with it which gave it a bad 

 smell. He had a great deal of trouble in contriving modes 

 of freeing it from these impurities, but he succeeded toler- 

 ably well at last. 



" He had, however, a great many difficulties to contend 

 with. His salary was very small, and the condition of the 

 government at that time in France was so unsettled, that 

 what was due him was very slowly and irregularly paid. 

 All his friends and acquaintances laughed at him, too, as a 

 visionary schemer. 



" He, however, persevered, and at length succeeded in 

 getting his invention so far perfected that he constructed 

 an apparatus sufficient for lighting a house which he hired 

 for the purpose, and then he advertised his plan and opened 

 his house once a week or so to the public, on the payment 

 of three francs admission. Do you remember how much 

 three francs is, of our money ?" 



John did not answer. 



"I verily believe the boy is asleep," said Lawrence, speak- 

 ing to himself; "so much the better. Sleep will do him 

 more good than any story." 



So Lawrence did not disturb him, but let him sleep on, 

 and John did not wake until he so nearly reached home 

 that he did not ask for the rest of the story. I will, how- 

 ever, add that poor Lebon did not live to see the final suc- 

 cess of his invention. In the midst of his active efforts to 

 induce the government to make arrangements for giving 

 his new mode of illumination a fair trial on a proper scale, 

 he was found one morning murdered in a public park in 

 Paris, or, rather, in a wood which has since become a pub- 

 lic park of great celebrity, but which was in those days des- 

 olate and lonely, and the resort of thieves and robbers. It 

 was supposed that, in crossing this ground on his way to 



