now at the bottom of the heap will soon be filling the
centre!

"Permit me to change my figure of speech. You are sweeping back the
waves of the sea while the tide is falling, and the wide-mouthed public
looks on, and whispers about that your broom makes all the waves obey,
and drives them back at will. Just when you begin to believe it yourself
the tide may turn, and neither brooms nor all the powers on earth can
then sweep it back.

"Isidor Werner, you believe yourself rich; but your wealth is like
molasses in a sieve. If you do not dip in your finger and taste the
sweet occasionally, you will have nothing to show for your pains in the
end. I shall ask you for but a taste of the sweet now, so that I may
preserve a little of it against that day which may come, when the sieve
will be bright and clean and empty again!"

There was a knock at the door.

"Come in!" I shouted. "Nothing but this lunch can save me from your
eloquence. You have already ruined me in three similes!"

The waiter arranged a bountiful and tempting luncheon on a writing
table. I commenced on it at once, but the doctor, though repeatedly
urged, persistently refused. He took a long draught at a _stein_ of
Munich beer, and continued:--

"My invention proposes to navigate the air and the ether beyond, as well
as the interplanetary spaces," he said impressively.

"Flying machine, eh?" I sneered, between bites of planked whitefish.

"Indeed no!" he growled, as if he detested this name. "My invention is
not a machine but a projectile. It is not self-propelling, because if it
depended upon its own propelling apparatus, it could not in thousands of
years navigate the interplanetary spaces. It is a _gravity projectile_,
and will travel at a rate of speed almost incalculable. It does not fly,
but its manner of travelling is more nearly like falling."

I gave the doctor a quick searching look to see if I could discover any
signs of incipient insanity. I met a firm, steady gaze; an earnest,
convincing look. Somehow, I felt there was something real and true and
wonderful about to come from the great scholar before me, and that I
must hear it and hear it all; that I must lend a serious and thoughtful
attention. My eyes were rivetted upon the doctor's for fully a minute in
silence.

"Go on," I said at last; "I am all attention."

CHAPTER II

The Gravity Projectile

Hermann Anderwelt had probably suffered many disappointments and waited
long