one spoke.

"I am hardly ready with proof to-night," he resumed after a moment.
"Will you all take dinner with me here at the club one week from
to-night?" He read affirmation in the glance of each.

"Good. That's settled," he said, rising. "At seven, then."

"But what was the theory you expected us to question you about?" asked
the Very Young Man.

The Chemist leaned on the back of his chair.

"The only solution I could see to the problem," he said slowly, "was to
find some way of making myself sufficiently small to be able to enter
that other universe. I have found such a way and one week from to-night,
gentlemen, with your assistance, I am going to enter the surface of that
ring at the point where it is scratched!"

CHAPTER II

INTO THE RING

The cigars were lighted and dinner over before the Doctor broached the
subject uppermost in the minds of every member of the party.

"A toast, gentlemen," he said, raising his glass. "To the greatest
research chemist in the world. May he be successful in his adventure
to-night."

The Chemist bowed his acknowledgment.

"You have not heard me yet," he said smiling.

"But we want to," said the Very Young Man impulsively.

"And you shall." He settled himself more comfortably in his chair.
"Gentlemen, I am going to tell you, first, as simply as possible, just
what I have done in the past two years. You must draw your own
conclusions from the evidence I give you.

"You will remember that I told you last week of my dilemma after the
destruction of the microscope. Its loss and the impossibility of
replacing it, led me into still bolder plans than merely the visual
examination of this minute world. I reasoned, as I have told you, that
because of its physical proximity, its similar environment, so to speak,
this outer world should be capable of supporting life identical with our
own.

"By no process of reasoning can I find adequate refutation of this
theory. Then, again, I had the evidence of my own eyes to prove that a
being I could not tell from one of my own kind was living there. That
this girl, other than in size, differs radically from those of our race,
I cannot believe.

"I saw then but one obstacle standing between me and this other
world--the discrepancy of size. The distance separating our world from
this other is infinitely great or infinitely small, according to the
viewpoint. In my present size it is only a few feet from here to the
ring on tha