e awake or
asleep.

(BELLOWS _winks toward_ SEYMOUR, _who takes no notice, but gives_
PHILO _careful attention._)

_Seymour_

I hope I shall not disappoint you.

_Philo_

I believe we have some points of view in common, for your profession
needs to take note of many problems connected with both evolution and
electricity. I have been a reader of general science for many years.
The fact that on the earth we have had a slow evolution from a monad
to a man contains a promise of further development of man into--let us
say an angel.

_Bellows_

Not very soon, I guess.

_Philo_ (_sharply_)

Hardly in your day, doctor. You needn't worry about the fashion in
wing-feathers.

_Seymour_

Go on, Mr. Warner.

_Philo_

In others of the many millions of globes about us in space, a similar
evolution is going on, and in some the evolution is less advanced than
in ours, in others incomparably more advanced.

_Seymour_

We may admit that.

(BELLOWS _looks to_ WARNER _for sympathy, and shakes his head._)

_Philo_

We have reached a stage when we have begun to peer out into the stellar
depths and question them. We are beginning to master the light and the
lightning, to measure the vastness of space, to weigh the suns, to
determine the elements that comprise them, to talk and send messages
thousands of miles without wires. Each year uncovers new wonders,
infinitely minute, infinitely great.

_Seymour_

True,--all true.

_Philo_ (_becoming more repressed and tensely excited as he goes on_)

The dreams of the alchemists are being realized. That machine yonder
detects the waves from a millionth of a millionth of a milligramme of
radium.

_Seymour_

What!

_Philo_

I have invented a tuned electroscope that would be destroyed by such
waves, so sensitive as to react only to waves from an inconceivable
distance, beyond thirty-five million miles.

_Seymour_ (_trying to take it in_)

Thirty-five million miles!

_Philo_ (_with great tension_)

Three weeks ago I made this instrument, and ever since then, at regular
intervals, there have been rhythmic flutterings of the goldleaf, regular
repetitions, as if it were knocking at the door of earth from the
eternal silences. I have watched it--the same measured fluttering--two
beats--then three--then two--then four and a pause! It is a studied
measure! It has meaning! When I first noticed it--the faint flutter of
the goldleaf--and knew that any waves