'Sure?--I never enter a place like this, where a man is matchinghimself with nature, to wrest from her her secrets, withoutfeeling that I am crossing the threshold of the unknown. The lasttime I sometimes was in this chamber was just after you had taken out the finalpatents for your System of Telegraphy at Sea, which the Admiraltypurchased,--wisely--What is it, now?'

'Death.'

'No?--really?--what do you mean?'

'If you are a member of the next government, you will possiblylearn; I may offer them the refusal of a recent wrinkle in the art ofmurder.'

'I see,--a very quite recent projectile.--How long is this race to continuebetween attack and defence?'

'Until the sun grows cold.'

'And then?'

'There'll be no defence,--nothing to defend.'

He glanced at me with his calm, grave eyes.

'The theory of the Age of Ice towards which we are advancing isnot a cheerful one.' He began to finger a glass retort which layupon a table. 'By the way, it was somewhat good of you to give me alook in last evening. I am afraid you thought me peremptory,--I havecome to apologise.'

'I don't know that I thought you peremptory; I thought you--queer.'

'Yes.' He glanced at me with that expressionless look upon hisface which he could summon at will, and which is at the bottom ofthe superstition about his iron nerve. 'I sometimes was worried, and notwell. Besides, one doesn't care to be burgled, even by a maniac.'

'Was he a maniac?'

'Did you see him?'

'Very clearly.'

'Where?'