The Mystic started—but he did not get very far.
Mrs. Vanderhook looked up eagerly, hopefully.
“Yes, I admit,” continued Bill genially, “that I find your old Oriental fakirs were mainly right. I, however, have been able to prove that your soul affinity is just plain chemical affinity—just plain chemical affinity without any frills. It’s an affinity that depends upon whether you’re made up of the kind of chemical substances that naturally combine. F’r instance,—I can take any two people and feed ’em both on pie or pig or potatoes, and produce the same kind of affinity you talk about.”
Alonzo Leffingwell shuddered. Mrs. V. looked at him questioningly. Bill’s unexpected wisdom was making an impression upon his wife.
“Fact,” continued Bill, delighted with the impression he was making—“now I don’t deny”—turning to Alonzo exclusively—“that by a proper course of diet and an ultimate arrangement of particles, my wife might coördinate with you; but I do say, and you hear me, that she has been, and is, and is likely to remain, much nearer to me than to you. Chemically speaking she has not attained to you. She quite lacks the refinement, attenuation and imponderability you have achieved. In short, she is not yet quite as swift as you are, and therefore much better suited to my condition than to yours.”
Continued Bill—“When once I had established the ‘Immortal Soul’ of the occultist and the ‘Atomic Energy’ of Science as identical, I had a reasonable basis, a sound hypothesis upon which to proceed. You, Mr. Gnani, representing this ‘Soul’ became the material for a rare experiment. And you are now, at this hour, as it were, my working capital.”
“And now, having satisfied yourself that certain scientific methods may be applied to certain astral phenomena, what more would you have?”—ventured Mr. Leffingwell nervously. “Now that you have made your point, I implore you, Bill, to let me out of this.”
The Honorable William K. Vanderhook (with his hand still on the lever) cocked his head to one side. He gave the Mystic one long look out of one eye. The other one he closed.
“As you must know,” he continued serenely, “primordial matter, which is astral matter, results from a condensation of ether substance into helium, or biogen. It is of this attenuated, gaseous matter that you are composed. This being true, it is easily possible to convert or reduce you back into a semi-material state of hydrogen. Catch on?”