lume.

"Here is the first edition of Buckwell Pink's _System of Medicine_. This
book was produced at immense cost and labour, and it is to be published
next week. When that book is published no one will buy it."

"Why not?" demanded Tearle. "I wrote an article in it myself."

"So did I," was my reply. "But that won't make any difference. No member
of the medical profession will be interested in it."

"Not interested? I can't believe that. It contains all the recent work."

"The medical profession will not be interested in it for a very simple
reason. The medical profession will have ceased to exist."

A look of amazement came to Tearle's face. I tapped the volume and
continued.

"You are wrong in thinking it contains all the recent work. It does not.
The last and greatest achievement of medical science is not recorded in
these pages. It is only recorded in ourselves. For that blue
pigmentation in your eyes and fingers is due to the Sarakoff-Harden
bacillus which closes once and for all the chapter of medicine."

CHAPTER XVI

THE VISIT OF THE HOME SECRETARY

In a few hours the initial effects of stimulation had worn off. The
acuity of hearing was no longer so pronounced and the sense of
refreshment, although still present, was not intense. We were already
becoming adjusted to the new condition. The feeling of inertia and
irresponsibility became gradually replaced by a general sense of
calmness. To me, it seemed as if I had entered a world of new
perspectives, a larger world in which space and time were widened out
immeasurably. I could scarcely recall the nature of those impulses that
had once driven me to and fro in endless activities, and in a constant
state of anxiety. For now I had no anxiety.

It is difficult to describe fully the extraordinary sense of freedom
that came from this change. For anxiety--the great modern emotion--is
something that besets a life on all sides so silently and so
continuously that it escapes direct detection. But it is there,
tightening the muscles, crinkling the skin, quickening the heart and
shortening the breath. Though almost imperceptible, it lurks under the
most agreeable surroundings, requiring only a word or a look to bring it
into the light. To be free from it--ah, that was an experience that no
man could ever forget! It was perhaps the nearest approach to that
condition of bliss, which many expect in one of the Heavens, that had
ever been attained on earth. A