efaced way, "that I wouldn't feel
more homely myself if I was put away with my old .450 Express and the
fowlin'-piece, the shorter one with the rubbered stock, and a clip or two
of cartridges--just a fool's fancy, of course, but there it is. How does
it strike you, Herr Professor?"

"Well," said Summerlee, "since you ask my opinion, it strikes me as an
indefensible throwback to the Stone Age or before it. I'm of the
twentieth century myself, and would wish to die like a reasonable
civilized man. I don't know that I am more afraid of death than the rest
of you, for I am an oldish man, and, come what may, I can't have very
much longer to live; but it is all against my nature to sit waiting
without a struggle like a sheep for the butcher. Is it quite certain,
Challenger, that there is nothing we can do?"

"To save us--nothing," said Challenger. "To prolong our lives a few
hours and thus to see the evolution of this mighty tragedy before we are
actually involved in it--that may prove to be within my powers. I have
taken certain steps----"

"The oxygen?"

"Exactly. The oxygen."

"But what can oxygen effect in the face of a poisoning of the ether?
There is not a greater difference in quality between a brick-bat and a
gas than there is between oxygen and ether. They are different planes of
matter. They cannot impinge upon one another. Come, Challenger, you
could not defend such a proposition."

"My good Summerlee, this etheric poison is most certainly influenced by
material agents. We see it in the methods and distribution of the
outbreak. We should not _a priori_ have expected it, but it is
undoubtedly a fact. Hence I am strongly of opinion that a gas like
oxygen, which increases the vitality and the resisting power of the body,
would be extremely likely to delay the action of what you have so happily
named the daturon. It may be that I am mistaken, but I have every
confidence in the correctness of my reasoning."

"Well," said Lord John, "if we've got to sit suckin' at those tubes like
so many babies with their bottles, I'm not takin' any."

"There will be no need for that," Challenger answered. "We have made
arrangements--it is to my wife that you chiefly owe it--that her boudoir
shall be made as airtight as is practicable. With matting and varnished
paper."

"Good heavens, Challenger, you don't suppose you can keep out ether with
varnished paper?"

"Really, my worthy friend, you are a trifle per