第8章

"The reason was simple enough," said the dogged Summerlee."Icontended that if the ether surrounding the earth was so toxic in one quarter that it produced dangerous symptoms, it was hardly likely that we three in the railway carriage should be entirely unaffected."The explanation only brought uproarious merriment from Challenger.He laughed until everything in the room seemed to rattle and quiver.

"Our worthy Summerlee is, not for the first time, somewhat out of touch with the facts of the situation," said he at last, mopping his heated brow."Now, gentlemen, I cannot make my point better than by detailing to you what I have myself done this morning.You will the more easily condone any mental abberation upon your own part when you realize that even I have had moments when my balance has been disturbed.We have had for some years in this household a housekeeper--one Sarah, with whose second name I have never attempted to burden my memory.She is a woman of a severe and forbidding aspect, prim and demure in her bearing, very impassive in her nature, and never known within our experience to show signs of any emotion.As I sat alone at my breakfast--Mrs.Challenger is in the habit of keeping her room of a morning--it suddenly entered my head that it would be entertaining and instructive to see whether I could find any limits to this woman's inperturbability.I devised a simple but effective experiment.Having upset a small vase of flowers which stood in the centre of the cloth, I rang the bell and slipped under the table.She entered and, seeing the room empty, imagined that I had withdrawn to the study.As I had expected, she approached and leaned over the table to replace the vase.Ihad a vision of a cotton stocking and an elastic-sided boot.

Protruding my head, I sank my teeth into the calf of her leg.

The experiment was successful beyond belief.For some moments she stood paralyzed, staring down at my head.Then with a shriek she tore herself free and rushed from the room.I pursued her with some thoughts of an explanation, but she flew down the drive, and some minutes afterwards I was able to pick her out with my field-glasses traveling very rapidly in a south-westerly direction.I tell you the anecdote for what it is worth.I drop it into your brains and await its germination.Is it illuminative? Has it conveyed anything to your minds? What do YOU think of it, Lord John?"Lord John shook his head gravely.

"You'll be gettin' into serious trouble some of these days if you don't put a brake on," said he.

"Perhaps you have some observation to make, Summerlee?""You should drop all work instantly, Challenger, and take three months in a German watering-place," said he.

"Profound! Profound!" cried Challenger."Now, my young friend, is it possible that wisdom may come from you where your seniors have so signally failed?"And it did.I say it with all modesty, but it did.Of course, it all seems obvious enough to you who know what occurred, but it was not so very clear when everything was new.But it came on me suddenly with the full force of absolute conviction.

"Poison!" I cried.

Then, even as I said the word, my mind flashed back over the whole morning's experiences, past Lord John with his buffalo, past my own hysterical tears, past the outrageous conduct of Professor Summerlee, to the queer happenings in London, the row in the park, the driving of the chauffeur, the quarrel at the oxygen warehouse.Everything fitted suddenly into its place.

"Of course," I cried again."It is poison.We are all poisoned.""Exactly," said Challenger, rubbing his hands, "we are all poisoned.Our planet has swum into the poison belt of ether, and is now flying deeper into it at the rate of some millions of miles a minute.Our young friend has expressed the cause of all our troubles and perplexities in a single word, `poison.'"We looked at each other in amazed silence.No comment seemed to meet the situation.

"There is a mental inhibition by which such symptoms can be checked and controlled," said Challenger."I cannot expect to find it developed in all of you to the same point which it has reached in me, for I suppose that the strength of our different mental processes bears some proportion to each other.

But no doubt it is appreciable even in our young friend here.

After the little outburst of high spirits which so alarmed my domestic I sat down and reasoned with myself.I put it to myself that I had never before felt impelled to bite any of my household.The impulse had then been an abnormal one.In an instant I perceived the truth.My pulse upon examination was ten beats above the usual, and my reflexes were increased.I called upon my higher and saner self, the real G.E.C., seated serene and impregnable behind all mere molecular disturbance.Isummoned him, I say, to watch the foolish mental tricks which the poison would play.I found that I was indeed the master.I could recognize and control a disordered mind.It was a remarkable exhibition of the victory of mind over matter, for it was a victory over that particular form of matter which is most intimately connected with mind.I might almost say that mind was at fault and that personality controlled it.Thus, when my wife came downstairs and I was impelled to slip behind the door and alarm her by some wild cry as she entered, I was able to stifle the impulse and to greet her with dignity and restraint.An overpowering desire to quack like a duck was met and mastered in the same fashion.