. Ever
seen a coral reef, by the way? We'll inspect one--many perhaps--on
our travels. . . . I'd burn in the pit rather than smatter out
popular guess-work. Yes, all personal pride apart, I couldn't do it.
But however badly I set down conclusions, they've all rested on data,
they've all grown up on data, and I haven't the data. . . . I wrote
out half a dozen pages and then asked myself, 'What would _you_ say
if a man came along professing to have made this discovery?
You'd demand his evidence, and you'd be right. Of course you'd be
right. And if he didn't produce it, you'd call him a quack.
Right again.' . . . From this personal point of view, to be sure, I
might take this sorry way out--print my conclusions, and anticipate
the demand for evidence by throwing myself overboard. . . . In the
dim and distant future some fellow might strike the lost path, take
the pains that I've taken, work out the theory, yes, and (it's even
possible) be generous enough to add that, by some freak of guessing,
in the year 1907, a certain Dr. John Foe, of whom nothing further is
known, did, in unscientific fashion, hit on the truth, or a part of
the truth. Oh, damn! _Why_ should I burn in the pit, or throw myself
overboard, or go down to the shades for a quack, because a thing like
you has crawled out of the Tottenham Court Road. . . . Eh? Well, I
won't, anyhow: and so you see how it is, and how it's going to be."

Farrell leaned against the rail, and held to a boat's davit, while
his gaze wandered vaguely out over the Atlantic as if it would
capture some wireless message. ("I knew how it would be," adds Foe
in his letter reporting this talk. "He was going to try the
forgive-and-forget with me: but by this time I was sure of myself.")

"Listen to me, Doctor," Farrell began. "Listen to me, for God's
pity! I didn't get off at Queenstown, though I knew you were on
board--"

"No use if you had," put in Foe. "You don't think I had overlooked
that possibility, do you?"

"Well, I didn't, anyway," was the answer. "And I'll tell you why.
Honest I will. . . . We're both here and bound for America, ain't we?
And, from what I've heard, there's no such expensive, bright,
up-to-date laboratories--if that's the way to pronounce it--as you'll
find in the States, in every walk of Science. Now, I never meant you
an injury, Doctor; but I did you one--that I freely own. . . . What I
say is, if money can make any amends, and if there's an ou