ion of death. No harmful results
followed the revivifying of the animal. The contraction of the cells was
far more difficult to accomplish; I finished my last experiment less
than six months ago."

"Then you really have been able to make an animal infinitely small?"
asked the Big Business Man.

The Chemist smiled. "I sent four rabbits into the unknown last week," he
said.

"What did they look like going?" asked the Very Young Man. The Chemist
signed him to be patient.

"The quantity of diminution to be obtained bothered me considerably.
Exactly how small that other universe is, I had no means of knowing,
except by the computations I made of the magnifying power of my lens.
These figures, I know, must necessarily be very inaccurate. Then, again,
I have no means of judging by the visual rate of diminution of these
rabbits, whether this contraction is at a uniform rate or accelerated.
Nor can I tell how long it is prolonged, for the quantity of drug
administered, as only a fraction of the diminution has taken place when
the animal passes beyond the range of any microscope I now possess.

"These questions were overshadowed, however, by a far more serious
problem that encompassed them all.

"As I was planning to project myself into this unknown universe and to
reach the exact size proportionate to it, I soon realized such a result
could not be obtained were I in an unconscious state. Only by successive
doses of the drug, or its retardent about which I will tell you later,
could I hope to reach the proper size. Another necessity is that I place
myself on the exact spot on that ring where I wish to enter and to climb
down among its atoms when I have become sufficiently small to do so.
Obviously, this would be impossible to one not possessing all his
faculties and physical strength."

"And did you solve that problem, too?" asked the Banker.

"I'd like to see it done," he added, reading his answer in the other's
confident smile.

The Chemist produced two small paper packages from his wallet. "These
drugs are the result of my research," he said. "One of them causes
contraction, and the other expansion, by an exact reversal of the
process. Taken together, they produce no effect, and a lesser amount of
one retards the action of the other." He opened the papers, showing two
small vials. "I have made them as you see, in the form of tiny pills,
each containing a minute quantity of the drug. It is by taking them
successivel