tory of interest and
wonder, compared with which the mystery of his disappearance pales into
insignificance. But the reader may judge for himself, for here follows
the story exactly as he wrote it. Upon his manuscript I have bestowed
hardly more than a proof-reader's technical revision.

ELLSWORTH DOUGLASS.

BOSTON, U.S.A.,
_December 13th, 1898._

BOOK I

Secrets of Space

CHAPTER I

Dr. Hermann Anderwelt

I had been busy all day trying to swarm the bees and secure my honey.
The previous day had been February 29th, a date which doesn't often
happen, and which I had especial reason to remember, for it had been the
most successful of my business career. I had made a long guess at the
shaky condition of the great house of Slater, Bawker & Co., who had been
heavy buyers of wheat. I had talked the market down, sold it down,
hammered it down; and, true enough, what nobody else seemed to expect
really happened. The big firm failed, the price of wheat went to smash
in a panic of my mixing, and, as a result, I saw a profit of more than
two hundred thousand dollars in the deal. But, in order to secure this
snug sum, I still had to buy back the wheat I had sold at higher prices,
and this I didn't find so easy. The crowd in the wheat pit had seen my
hand, and were letting me play it alone against them all.

After the session I hurried to my office to get my overcoat and hat,
having an engagement to lunch at the Club.

"If you please, Mr. Werner, there is a queer old gentleman in your
private office who wishes to see you," said Flynn, my chief clerk.

"Ask him to call again to-morrow; I am in a great hurry to-day," I said,
slipping on one sleeve of my overcoat as I started out.

"But he has been waiting in there since eleven o'clock, and said he very
much wished to see you when you had plenty of time. He would not allow
me to send on the floor for you during the session."

"Since eleven o'clock! Did he have his lunch and a novel sent up? Well,
I can hardly run away from a man who has waited three and a half hours
to see me;" and I entered my private office with my overcoat on.

Seated in my deep, leathern arm-chair was an elderly man, with rather
long and bushy iron-grey hair, and an uneven grey beard. His head
inclined forward, he breathed heavily, and was apparently fast asleep.

"You will pardon my awaking you, but I never do business asleep!"