Part 29 (2/2)

Accordingly I devoted the following day to meditating my plan of attack, for I felt that I had been challenged to a final contest. Late the next day, I felt confident of my own ability to dispossess him, and in order further to test his power, when night came I doubly locked the door to my room, first with the key and next with the inside bolt. I had determined to force him again to induce inert material to obey his command, as he had done at our first interview. The reader will remember that Prof. Chickering had deemed that occurrence an illusion, and I confess that time had dimmed the vividness of the scene in my own mind.

Hence I proposed to verify the matter. Therefore, at the approach of nine o'clock, the evening following, I sat with my gaze riveted on the bolt of the door, determined not to answer his knock.

He gave me no chance to neglect a response to his rap. Exactly at the stroke of nine the door swung noiselessly on its hinges, the wizard entered, and the door closed again. The bolt had not moved, the k.n.o.b did not turn. The bar pa.s.sed through the catch and back to its seat,--I sprung from my chair, and excitedly and rudely rushed past my guest. I grasped the k.n.o.b, wrenched it with all my might. Vainly; the door was locked, the bolt was fastened. Then I turned to my visitor. He was quietly seated in his accustomed place, and apparently failed to notice my discomposure, although he must have realized that he had withstood my first test.

This p.r.o.nounced defeat, at the very beginning of our proposed contest, produced a depressing effect; nevertheless I made an effort at self-control, and seating myself opposite, looked my antagonist in the face. Calm, dignified, with the brow of a philosopher, and the countenance of a philanthropist, a perfect type of the exquisite gentleman, and the cultured scholar, my guest, as serene and complacent as though, instead of an intruder, he were an invited partic.i.p.ant of the comforts of my fireside, or even the host himself, laid his hat upon the table, stroked his silvery, translucent beard, and said:

”Well?”

I accepted the challenge, for the word, as he emphasized it, was a challenge, and hurled at him, in hopes to catch him unprepared, the following abrupt sentence:

”I doubt the possibility of the existence of a great cavern such as you have described. The superinc.u.mbent ma.s.s of earth would crush the strongest metal. No material known to man could withstand a pressure so great as would overlie an arch as large as that you depict; material would succ.u.mb even if the roof were made of steel.”

”Do not be so positive,” he replied. ”By what authority do you make this a.s.sertion?”

”By the authority of common sense as opposed to an unreasonable hypothesis. You should know that there is a limit to the strength of all things, and that no substance is capable of making an arch of thousands of miles, which, according to your a.s.sertion, must have been the diameter of the roof of your inland sea.”

”Ah,” he replied, ”and so you again crush my facts with your theory.

Well, let me ask a question.”

”Proceed.”

”Did you ever observe a bubble resting on a bubble?”

”Yes.”

”Did you ever place a pipe-stem in a partly filled bowl of soap water, and by blowing through it fill the bowl with bubbles?”

”Yes.”

”Did you ever calculate the tensile strength of the material from which you blew the bubble?”

”No; for soap water has no appreciable strength.”

”And yet you know that a bubble made of suds has not only strength, but elasticity. Suppose a bubble of energy floating in s.p.a.ce were to be covered to the depth of the thickness of a sheet of tissue paper with the dust of s.p.a.ce, would that surprise you?”

”No.”

”Suppose two such globes of energy, covered with dust, were to be telescoped or attached together, would you marvel at the fact?”

”No.”

He drew a picture on a piece of paper, in which one line was inclosed by another, and remarked:

”The pencil mark on this paper is proportionately thicker than the crust of the earth over the earth cavern I have described. Even if it were made of soap suds, it could revolve through s.p.a.ce and maintain its contour.”

”But the earth is a globe,” I interjected.

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