I stopped considering Evidently the thing, attracted him "But I'm afraid bore you,"

" I'm too dull ? "

" Oh, no; but technicalities "

"Anyhow, you've interested me immensely this afternoon "

" it great help Nothing clears up one's ideas as explaining them Hitherto - "

" My , say no more "

" But really spare the time ? "

" no rest like change of occupation," , with profound conviction

The affair was over On my verandah steps he turned " already greatly indebted ,"

an interrogative noise

" completely cured me ridiculous habit of humming," he explained

glad of any service to him, and he turned away

Immediately the train of thought conversation had suggested resumed its sway His arms began to wave in their former fashion The faint echo of "zuzzoo" came back breeze . .

Well, after all, that was not my affair . .

the , and again the , and delivered two lectures on physics to our mutual satisfaction He talked with an air of being extremely lucid "ether" and "tubes of force," and " gravitational potential," and things like that, and I sat in my other folding-chair and said, " Yes," " Go on," " I follow you," him going tremendously difficult stuff, but thing he ever suspected understand him There were moments when I doubted whether well employed, but at any rate resting confounded play things gleamed on me clearly for space, only to vanish just when I had hold Sometimes my attention failed altogether, and give it up and sit and stare at him, wondering whether, after all, it better to use him as central figure in good farce and let all this other stuff slide And then, perhaps, catch on again for bit

earliest opportunity I went his house large and carelessly furnished; there were no servants his three assistants, dietary and private life were characterised by philosophical simplicity water-drinker, vegetarian, and all those logical disciplinary things But the sight equipment settled many doubts It looked like business from cellar to attic - an amazing little place in an out-of-the-way village The ground-floor rooms contained benches and apparatus, the bakehouse and scullery boiler had developed into respectable furnaces, dynamos occupied the cellar, and gasometer garden He showed it with all the confiding zest of man who living alone His seclusion was overflowing now in an excess of confidence, and I had the good luck the recipient

The three assistants were creditable specimens class of" handy-men " they came Conscientious if unintelligent, strong, civil, and willing One, Spargus, who did the cooking and all the metal work, sailor; second, Gibbs, was joiner; third was an ex-jobbing gardener, and now general assistant They were the merest labourers All the intelligent work by Cavor Theirs darkest ignorance compared even with my muddled impression

And now, nature inquiries Here, unhappily, comes grave difficulty no scientific expert, and if I were to attempt to set forth highly scientific language of Mr Cavor the aim his experiments tended, afraid confuse the reader but myself, and almost certainly make some blunder bring upon me the mockery of every up-to-date student of mathematical physics country The best thing do therefore is, my impressions in my own inexact language, without any attempt to wear garment of knowledge no claim

The object of Mr Cavor's search was substance that "opaque " - he used some other word forgotten, but "opaque" conveys the idea - to "all forms of radiant energy " "Radiant energy," me understand, was anything like light or heat, or those Rontgen Rays talk about year or so ago, or the electric waves of Marconi, or gravitation All these things, , radiate out from centres, and act on bodies at distance, whence comes the term "radiant energy " Now almost all substances are opaque to some form or other of radiant energy Glass, for example, is transparent to light, but much less so to heat, so useful as fire-screen; and alum is transparent to light, but blocks heat completely solution of iodine in carbon bisulphide, other hand, completely blocks light, but is quite transparent to heat hide fire , but permit all its warmth to Metals are opaque to light and heat, but also to electrical energy, which passes through both iodine solution and glass almost they interposed And so on

Now all known substances are "transparent" to gravitation use screens of various sorts to cut off the light or heat, or electrical influence sun, or the warmth earth from anything; screen things by sheets of metal from Marconi's rays, but nothing will cut off the gravitational attraction sun or the gravitational attraction earth Yet why there nothing is hard Cavor see why such substance exist, and certainly tell him I had never thought possibility before He showed me by calculations on paper, which Lord Kelvin, , or Professor Lodge, or Professor Karl Pearson, or any great scientific people understood, but which simply reduced me to hopeless muddle, that was such substance possible, but must satisfy certain conditions an amazing piece of reasoning Much as it amazed and exercised me , it impossible to reproduce it here "Yes," all, "yes; go on ! " Suffice it story that he believed able to manufacture this possible substance opaque to gravitation out of complicated alloy of metals and something new - new element, I fancy - called, I believe, helium, sent to him from London in sealed stone jars Doubt thrown detail, but almost certain helium he had sent him in sealed stone jars certainly something very gaseous and thin If only I had taken notes .

But then, how was I to foresee the necessity of taking notes ?

merest germ of an imagination will understand the extraordinary possibilities substance, and will sympathise little emotion understanding emerged haze of abstruse phrases Cavor expressed himself Comic relief in play indeed ! before believe that I had interpreted him aright, and very careful not to ask questions enabled him to gauge the profundity of misunderstanding into which he dropped his daily exposition But no one reading the story of it here will sympathise fully, because from my barren narrative impossible to gather the strength conviction astonishing substance was positively going made

recall that my play an hour's consecutive work at after my visit house My imagination had other things There seemed no limit possibilities stuff; whichever way I tried on miracles and revolutions For example, if one wanted to lift weight, however enormous, one had only sheet substance beneath it, and one might lift it with straw My first natural impulse was to apply this principle to guns and ironclads, and all the material and methods of war, and to shipping, locomotion, building, every conceivable form of human industry The chance that had brought me very birth-chamber new time - an epoch, no less - was one chances that come once in thousand years The thing unrolled, it expanded and expanded Among other things my redemption as business man parent company, and daughter companies, applications to right of us, applications to left, rings and trusts, privileges, and concessions spreading and spreading, until one vast, stupendous Cavorite company ran and ruled the world

And !