has there
been any change--er--in your condition?"

Burton shivered for a moment.

"None at present," he admitted. "It is scarcely due as yet."

Mr. Cowper drew his chair a little nearer. His face betokened the
liveliest interest. Edith stood in the window for a moment and then
sank into a chair in the background.

"With reference to your last remark," the professor went on, "it has
yet, I think, to be proved that these beans are of equal potency. You
understand me, I am sure, Mr. Burton? I mean that it does not in the
least follow that because one of them is able to keep you in an abnormal
condition for two months, the next one will keep you there for the same
period."

Burton was frankly startled.

"Is there anything about that in the translation, sir?" he asked.

"There is this sentence which I will read to you," the professor
pronounced, drawing a roll of paper from his pocket and adjusting his
spectacles. "I have now a more or less correct translation of the
sheets you left with me, a copy of which is at your disposal. Here it
is:--'_The formula is now enunciated and proved. The secret which has
defied the sages of the world since the ages of twilight, has yielded
itself to me, the nineteenth seeker after the truth in one direct line.
One slight detail alone baffles me. So far as I have gone at present,
the constituent parts, containing always the same elements and
producing, therefore, the same effect, appear in variable dimensions or
potencies, for reasons which at present elude me. Of my formula there
is no longer any doubt. This substance which I have produced shall
purify and make holy the world._'"

The professor looked up from his paper.

"Our interesting friend," he remarked, "seems to have been interrupted at
this point, probably by the commencement of that illness which had,
unfortunately, a fatal conclusion. Yet the meaning of what he writes is
perfectly clear. This substance, consolidated, I believe, into what you
term a bean, is not equally distributed. Therefore, I take it that you
may remain in your present condition for a longer or shorter period of
time. The potency of the first--er--dose, is nothing to go by. You
have, however, already learned how to render your present condition
eternal."

Burton sighed.

"The knowledge came too late," he said. "The tree had disappeared. It
was given away, by the Mr. Waddington I told you of, to a child whom he
met in the street."

"Dear me!" Mr