The Seventh Noon

The right to die?
Professor Barstow, with a perplexed scowl ruffling the barbette of gray hairs above his keen eyes, shook his head and turning from the young man whose long legs extended over the end of the lean sofa upon which he sprawled in one corner of the laboratory, held the test-tube, which he had been studying abstractedly, up to the light. The flickering gas was not good for delicate work, and it was only lately that Barstow, spurred on by a glimpse of the end to a long series of experiments, had attempted anything after dark. He squinted thoughtfully at the yellow fluid in the tube and then, resuming his discussion, declared emphatically,
We have no such right, Peter! You 're wrong. I don't know where, because you put it too cleverly for me. But I know you 're dead wrong—even if your confounded old theories are right, even if your deductions are sound. You 're wrong where you bring up.
Man dear, answered the other gently, you are too good a scientist to reason so. That is purely feminine logic.
I am too good a scientist to believe that anything so complex as human life was meant to be wasted in a scheme where not so much as an atom is lost. Bah, your liver is asleep! Too much work—too much work! The black dog has pounced upon your shoulders!
I never had an attack of the blues or anything similar in my life, Barstow, Donaldson denied quietly. You 'll propose smelling salts next.
Then what the devil does ail you?
Nothing ails me. Can't a man have a few theories without the aid of liver complaint?
Not that kind. They don't go with a sound constitution. When a man begins to talk of finding no use for life, he 's either a coward or sick. And—I know you 're not a coward, Peter.
The man on the couch turned uneasily.