ught and act than we are all the time. The marvel of drugs
has always been great to my mind; you can madden a man, calm a man, make
him incredibly strong and alert or a helpless log, quicken this passion
and allay that, all by means of drugs, and here was a new miracle to be
added to this strange armoury of phials the doctors use! But Gibberne was
far too eager upon his technical points to enter very keenly into my
aspect of the question.

It was the 7th or 8th of August when he told me the distillation that
would decide his failure or success for a time was going forward as we
talked, and it was on the 10th that he told me the thing was done and the
New Accelerator a tangible reality in the world. I met him as I was going
up the Sandgate Hill towards Folkestone--I think I was going to get my
hair cut, and he came hurrying down to meet me--I suppose he was coming to
my house to tell me at once of his success. I remember that his eyes were
unusually bright and his face flushed, and I noted even then the swift
alacrity of his step.

"It's done," he cried, and gripped my hand, speaking very fast; "it's more
than done. Come up to my house and see."

"Really?"

"Really!" he shouted. "Incredibly! Come up and see."

"And it does--twice?"

"It does more, much more. It scares me. Come up and see the stuff. Taste
it! Try it! It's the most amazing stuff on earth." He gripped my arm and;
walking at such a pace that he forced me into a trot, went shouting with
me up the hill. A whole _char-a-banc_-ful of people turned and stared
at us in unison after the manner of people in _chars-a-banc_. It was
one of those hot, clear days that Folkestone sees so much of, every colour
incredibly bright and every outline hard. There was a breeze, of course,
but not so much breeze as sufficed under these conditions to keep me cool
and dry. I panted for mercy.

"I'm not walking fast, am I?" cried Gibberne, and slackened his pace to a
quick march.

"You've been taking some of this stuff," I puffed.

"No," he said. "At the utmost a drop of water that stood in a beaker from
which I had washed out the last traces of the stuff. I took some last
night, you know. But that is ancient history now."

"And it goes twice?" I said, nearing his doorway in a grateful
perspiration.

"It goes a thousand times, many thousand times!" cried Gibberne, with a
dramatic gesture, flinging open his Early English carved oak gate.

"Phew!" said I, and followed hi