to get proof," said the Chemist.

"Do you believe all these innumerable universes, both larger and smaller
than ours, are inhabited?" asked the Doctor.

"I should think probably most of them are. The existence of life, I
believe, is as fundamental as the existence of matter without life."

"How do you suppose that girl got in there?" asked the Very Young Man,
coming out of a brown study.

"What puzzled me," resumed the Chemist, ignoring the question, "is why
the girl should so resemble our own race. I have thought about it a good
deal, and I have reached the conclusion that the inhabitants of any
universe in the next smaller or larger plane to ours probably resemble
us fairly closely. That ring, you see, is in the same--shall we
say--environment as ourselves. The same forces control it that control
us. Now, if the ring had been created on Mars, for instance, I believe
that the universes within its atoms would be inhabited by beings like
the Martians--if Mars has any inhabitants. Of course, in planes beyond
those next to ours, either smaller or larger, changes would probably
occur, becoming greater as you go in or out from our own universe."

"Good Lord! It makes one dizzy to think of it," said the Big Business
Man.

"I wish I knew how that girl got in there," sighed the Very Young Man,
looking at the ring.

"She probably didn't," retorted the Doctor. "Very likely she was created
there, the same as you were here."

"I think that is probably so," said the Chemist. "And yet, sometimes I
am not at all sure. She was very human." The Very Young Man looked at
him sympathetically.

"How are you going to prove your theories?" asked the Banker, in his
most irritatingly practical way.

The Chemist picked up the ring and put it on his finger. "Gentlemen," he
said. "I have tried to tell you facts, not theories. What I saw through
that ultramicroscope was not an unproven theory, but a fact. My theories
you have brought out by your questions."

"You are quite right," said the Doctor; "but you did mention yourself
that you hoped to provide proof."

The Chemist hesitated a moment, then made his decision. "I will tell you
the rest," he said.

"After the destruction of the microscope, I was quite at a loss how to
proceed. I thought about the problem for many weeks. Finally I decided
to work along another altogether different line--a theory about which I
am surprised you have not already questioned me."

He paused, but no