ps
the still unlit cheroot. "A pretty dangerous business it seems to me,
this monkeying about with people's glands."

"It called attention to the danger of any interference with Nature's
carefully-adjusted balances between life and death," continued
Malcolm Sage, who had returned to the serpent which now sported a
pair of horns, "and was insistent that the lengthening of human life
could result only in harm to the community. Do you happen to know if
Professor McMurray had seen this?"

"He had." Sir Jasper leaned forward to knock the ashes from his pipe
into the copper tray on Malcolm Sage's table. "We talked of it
during dinner that evening. His contention was that science could
not be constricted by utilitarianism, and that Nature would adjust
her balances to the new conditions."

"But," grumbled Sir John Dene, "it wouldn't be until there had been
about the tallest kind of financial panic this little globe of
misery has ever seen."

"The article maintained that there would be an intervening period of
chaos," remarked Malcolm Sage meditatively, as he opened a drawer
and took from it a copy of _The Present Century_. "I was
particularly struck with this passage," he remarked:

"'It is impossible to exaggerate the extreme delicacy of the
machinery of modern civilization,' he read. 'Industrialism, the
food-supply, existence itself are dependent upon the death-rate.
Reduce this materially and it will inevitably lead to an upheaval of
a very grave nature. For instance, it would mean an addition of
something like a million to the population of the United Kingdom
each year, over and above those provided for by the normal excess of
births over deaths, and _it would be years before Nature could
readjust_ her balances.'"

Malcolm Sage looked across at Sir Jasper, who for some seconds
remained silent, apparently deep in thought.

"I think," he said presently, with the air of a man carefully
weighing his words, "that McMurray was inclined to under-estimate
the extreme delicacy of the machinery of modern civilization. I
recall his saying that the arguments in that article would apply
only in the very unlikely event of someone meeting with unqualified
success. That is to say, by the discovery of a serum that would
achieve what the Spaniards hoped of the Fountain of Eternal Youth,
an instantaneous transformation from age to youth."

"A sort of Faust stunt," murmured Sir John Dene.

Sir Jasper nodded his head gravely.

Fo