"I am of the same opinion," said the Professor, "and I am obliged to you for your generosity. Can it talk?"
"Fluently," said MZ04, "but with a bad accent."
I now said very decisively that I was a free man, that I did not belong to either of them, and that I absolutely declined to be handed as a slave or a chattel from one to the other. I repeated this in varying terms more than once. They took not the slightest notice of it, but waited patiently till I had finished.
"I am busy to-day at the Heat and Light Control," said MZ04. "I fear that I must now leave you."
"Going to walk?" asked the Professor.
"No. I have taken my exercise for to-day. I shall disintegrate."
Even as I looked at him, his substance became a smoky shadow, shimmering and vibrating. It grew rapidly fainter and fainter until it had vanished altogether.
CHAPTER III
"And now," said the Professor, "before we go any further there is one point on which I wish to be assured. You came from the house of MZ04 just now?"