“Not I,” said the other. “This is your circus.”
“Yes, indeed it’s mine. And I’m not afraid of it. Schmalz, do your worst!” He dropped, laughing, into the chair the professor set for him, and at Schmalz’s direction unbuttoned his vest. The professor hung the pneumograph around his neck and fastened it tightly about the big chest. He laid Welter’s forearm in a rest suspended from the ceiling, and attached the cylinder to the second finger of the plump hand. In the meantime Trant had quickly set the pencils to bear upon the record sheet and had started the cylinder on which the sheet traveled under them.
“You see, I have prepared for you.” Schmalz lifted a napkin from a tray holding several little dishes. He took from one of these a bit of caviar and laid it upon Welter’s tongue. At the same instant Trant pushed down the key. The pencils showed a slight commotion, and the spectators stared at this record sheet!
“Ach!” exclaimed Schmalz, “you do not like caviar.”
“How do you know that?” demanded Welter.
“The instruments show that at the unpleasant taste you breathe less freely—not so deep. Your finger, as under strong sensation or emotions, grows smaller, and your pulse beats more rapidly.”
“By the Lord! Welter, what do you think of that?” cried one of his companions; “Your finger gets smaller when you taste caviar!”
It was a joke to them. Boisterously laughing, they tried Welter with other food upon the tray; they lighted for him one of the black cigars of which he was most fond, and watched the trembling pencils write the record of his pleasure at the taste and smell. Through it all Trant waited, alert, watchful, biding the time to carry out his plan. It came when, having exhausted the articles at hand, they paused to find some other means to carry on the amusement. The young psychologist leaned forward suddenly.
“It is no great ordeal after all, is it, Mr. Welter?” he said. “Modern psychology does not put its subjects to torture like”—he halted, meaningly—“a prisoner in the Elizabethan Age!”