It is thousands, perhaps millions of years since Sir John explained to
me. What little I understood at the time I may have forgotten, yet I try
to reproduce what I can of his theory.

"In my study of the processes of birth," he began, "I discovered the
rudiments of an action which takes place in the bodies of both men and
women. There are certain properties in the foods we eat that remain in
the body for the reproduction of life, two distinct Essences, so to
speak, of which one is retained by the woman, another by the man. It is
the union of these two properties that, of course, creates the child.

"Now, I made a slight mistake one day in experimenting with a
guinea-pig, and I re-arranged certain organs which I need not describe
so that I thought I had completely messed up the poor creature's
abdomen. It lived, however, and I laid it aside. It was some years later
that I happened to notice it again. It had not given birth to any young,
but I was amazed to note that it had apparently grown no older: it
seemed precisely in the same state of growth in which I had left it.

"From that I built up. I re-examined the guinea-pig, and observed it
carefully. I need not detail my studies. But in the end I found that my
'mistake' had in reality been a momentous discovery. I found that I had
only to close certain organs, to re-arrange certain ducts, and to open
certain dormant organs, and, _mirabile dictu_, the whole process of
reproduction was changed.

"You have heard, of course, that our bodies are continually changing,
hour by hour, minute by minute, so that every few years we have been
literally reborn. Some such principle as this seems to operate in
reproduction, except that, instead of the old body being replaced by the
new, and in its form, approximately, the new body is created apart from
it. It is the creation of children that causes us to die, it would seem,
because if this activity is, so to speak, dammed up or turned aside into
new channels, the reproduction operates on the old body, renewing it
continually. It is very obscure and very absurd, is it not? But the most
absurd part of it is that it is true. Whatever the true explanation may
be, the fact remains that the operation can be done, that it actually
prolongs life indefinitely, and that I alone know the secret."

Sir John told me a very great deal more, but, after all, I think it
amounted to little more than this. It would be impossible for me to
express the