fessor Barstow, with a perplexed scowl ruffling the barbette of gray
hairs above his keen eyes, shook his head and turning from the young
man whose long legs extended over the end of the lean sofa upon which
he sprawled in one corner of the laboratory, held the test-tube, which
he had been studying abstractedly, up to the light. The flickering gas
was not good for delicate work, and it was only lately that Barstow,
spurred on by a glimpse of the end to a long series of experiments, had
attempted anything after dark. He squinted thoughtfully at the yellow
fluid in the tube and then, resuming his discussion, declared
emphatically,

"We have no such right, Peter! You 're wrong. I don't know where,
because you put it too cleverly for me. But I know you 're dead
wrong--even if your confounded old theories are right, even if your
deductions are sound. You 're wrong where you bring up."

"Man dear," answered the other gently, "you are too good a scientist to
reason so. That is purely feminine logic."

"I am too good a scientist to believe that anything so complex as human
life was meant to be wasted in a scheme where not so much as an atom is
lost. Bah, your liver is asleep! Too much work--too much work! The
black dog has pounced upon your shoulders!"

"I never had an attack of the blues or anything similar in my life,
Barstow," Donaldson denied quietly. "You 'll propose smelling salts
next."

"Then what the devil does ail you?"

"Nothing ails me. Can't a man have a few theories without the aid of
liver complaint?"

"Not that kind. They don't go with a sound constitution. When a man
begins to talk of finding no use for life, he 's either a coward or
sick. And--I know you 're not a coward, Peter."

The man on the couch turned uneasily.

"Nor sick either. You are as stubborn and narrow as an old woman,
Barstow," he complained.

"Living is n't a matter of courage, physical or moral. It suits
you--it doesn't happen to suit me, but that doesn't mean that you are
well and moral while I 'm sick and a coward. My difficulty is
simple--clear; I haven't the material means to get out of life what I
want. I 'll admit that I might get it by working longer, but I should
have to work so many years in my own way that there would n't in the
end be enough of me left to enjoy the reward. Now, if I don't like
that proposition, who the devil is to criticize me for not accepting
it?"

"It's quitting not to stay."