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.
I summoned him, I say, to watch the foolish mental tricks which the
poison would play. I found that