“Now, my dear sir,” he said, whispering in his excitement as if he feared lest the very retorts and crucibles and pneumatic troughs should hear him, “Now, my dear sir, I wish you to see for yourself. First of all, the glass. I will take it out myself—I know exactly how I put it in. I take it out—thus! I place it on this vacant space—thus. Look for yourself, my dear fellow. What do you see?”

The Professor, watching Mr. Tertius’s movements with undisguised interest, took off his spectacles, picked up a reading-glass, bent down and carefully examined the tumbler.

“Yes,” he said, after a while, “yes, Tertius, I certainly see distinct thumb and finger-marks round the upper part of this glass. Oh, yes—no doubt of that!”

“Allow me to take one of your clean specimen slides,” observed Mr. Tertius, picking up a square of highly polished glass. “There! I place this slide here and upon it I deposit this sandwich. Now, my dear Cox-Raythwaite, favour me by examining the sandwich even more closely than you did the glass—if necessary.”

But the Professor shook his head. He clapped Mr. Tertius on the shoulder.

“Excellent!” he exclaimed. “Good! Pooh!—no need for care there. The thing’s as plain as—as I am. Good, Tertius, good!”

“You see it?” said Mr. Tertius, delightedly.[Pg 52]

“See it! Good Lord, why, who could help see it?” answered the Professor. “Needs no great amount of care or perception to see that, as I said. Of course, I see it. Glad you did, too!”

“But we must take the grea