The professor tilted back his chair. "Strange," he mused, "how brain controls matter to the end. Here's John Smithers in the next room—a strong man admittedly—cribbed, cabined, and confined by a man he could probably crumple up with one hand. It was a stroke of genius to advertise my discovery in the papers. The criminal classes all read them now, and I thought I should probably attract a thief. I placed the radium in the middle of the room, and painted the wall behind with sulphide of zinc so that he couldn't possibly miss it. I easily constructed a threshold that closed the door when stepped upon. And then I had only to wait."
Here the bell rang. "Aha, Smithers, you are growing impatient. Well?"
"Are you a Christian?" came the reply.
"I hope so. Why?"
"Do you call this Christian conduct, to imprison me here with this infernal block of fire? I tell you, man, it's poisoning me. It's choking me. It's getting to my brain. If you are a Christian, come down and let me out."
"None of that hysterical sort of talk, Smithers," said the Professor sternly. "It's no good appealing for mercy. You are a thief, and you've got to be punished. Pull yourself together, and show what you are made of. You don't know what a lot of good your sufferings may do to humanity. I shall publish a full account of them in the British Medical Journal, and I am sure your family will be proud of you when they read it."
"I haven't got a family, and if I had they shouldn't read your jibberings. I tell you that if you don't let me out I shall do something desperate!"
"You can't," said the Professor. "There's nothing in the room except the radium and the telephone. If you knock the radium about you'll only make things worse for yourself, and if you damage the telephone you cut off your only link with the outside world. Be a man, Smithers. You've read of the Black Hole of Calcutta. The sufferings of the prisoners there were far worse than yours."
"You are a scientific vampire—a howling chemical bounder!" came the response.
"Tut, tut!" said the Professor serenely. "Do try and be calm. Take a stroll round. You might put the thermometer under your tongue again, and let me have the record. Nothing like filling your leisure moments with useful occupation."