"You spoke of liquid carbon;
does it exist?"

"Yes; here is some in this phial. See it--how pure, how transparent!
how it loves and hoards the light!" The old man held the phial up as
he spoke, and turned it round and round. "See how it flashes! No
wonder, for it is the diamond, liquid and uncrystallized. Think how
these fools of men have called diamonds precious above all gems
through these many weary years, and showered them on their kings, or
tossed them to their mistresses' feet, never dreaming that the silly
stone they lauded was inert, crystallized life!"

"Can't you crystallize diamonds yourself?" asked Wyde, "and make
Freiberg a Golconda and yourself a Croesus?"

"It could be done, after the lapse of thousands of years," replied
Herr Lebensfunke. "Place undiluted liquid carbon in that inner globe,
keep the coil at a white heat, and if Adam had started the process,
his heir-at-law would have a koh-i-noor to-day, and a nice lawsuit for
its possession."

Ronald Wyde bent toward the globe once more and examined the throbbing
mass closely, whistling softly meanwhile.

"If you can create this cellular life, why not develop it still higher
into an organism?"

"Because I can only create life--not soul. Years ago I was a
freethinker, now my discoveries have made me a deist; for I found that
my cells, living as they were, and possessing undoubted parietal
circulation, were not germs; and though they might cluster into a bulk
like this, as bubbles do to form froth, to evolve an animal or plant
from them was far beyond me; that needs what we call soul. But, in
searching blindly for this higher power, I grasped a greater discovery
than any I had hoped for--the power to isolate life from its bodily
organism."

"You have to keep the bottle carefully corked, I should imagine,"
laughed Ronald.

"Not quite," said Herr Lebensfunke, joining in the laugh. "Life is not
glue. My grand discovery is the life-magnet."

"Which has the post of honor on your table here, has it not?" inquired
Ronald, drawing his hand from his pocket and pointing to the insulated
coil.

The old man glanced keenly at his hand as he did so; at which Ronald
seemed confused, and pocketed it again abruptly.

"Yes, that is the life-magnet. You see this bent glass tube surrounded
by the helix? That tube contains liquid carbon. I pass through the
helix a current of induced electricity, generated by the action of
these sixty Bunsen cups upon a successi