hat I should be very proud and pleased if you
cared to confide them to me."

"And I will. Not all. I do not think that I shall ever, while I live,
tell all. But I shall leave directions behind me so that when I die you
may be able to carry on my unfinished work. I shall tell you where those
directions are to be found. In the meantime, you must be content to
learn the effects which I produce without knowing every detail as to the
means."

Robert settled himself down in his chair and concentrated his attention
upon his companion's words, while Haw bent forward his eager, earnest
face, like a man who knows the value of the words which he is saying.

"You are already aware," he remarked, "that I have devoted a great deal
of energy and of time to the study of chemistry."

"So you told me."

"I commenced my studies under a famous English chemist, I continued
them under the best man in France, and I completed them in the most
celebrated laboratory of Germany. I was not rich, but my father had left
me enough to keep me comfortably, and by living economically I had a
sum at my command which enabled me to carry out my studies in a very
complete way. When I returned to England I built myself a laboratory
in a quiet country place where I could work without distraction or
interruption. There I began a series of investigations which soon took
me into regions of science to which none of the three famous men who
taught me had ever penetrated.

"You say, Robert, that you have some slight knowledge of chemistry, and
you will find it easier to follow what I say. Chemistry is to a large
extent an empirical science, and the chance experiment may lead to
greater results than could, with our present data, be derived from the
closest study or the keenest reasoning. The most important chemical
discoveries from the first manufacture of glass to the whitening and
refining of sugar have all been due to some happy chance which might
have befallen a mere dabbler as easily as a deep student.

"Well, it was to such a chance that my own great discovery--perhaps the
greatest that the world has seen--was due, though I may claim the credit
of having originated the line of thought which led up to it. I had
frequently speculated as to the effect which powerful currents of
electricity exercise upon any substance through which they are poured
for a considerable time. I did not here mean such feeble currents as
are passed along a telegraph wire, but I