"Poor beggar!" he said to himself. "He's just beginning to realise things. Five centigrammes of radium chloride killed eight mice in three days; how long will it take an ounce of radium bromide to render a strong man insensible? That's the problem in rule of three, and it's high time that someone worked out the answer.
"Well?" in reply to the bell.
"Temperature, 102; pulse, 100. Look here, Blyth, I'm going dotty. If you won't have pity on me as a Christian, I appeal to you as a family man. Your people wouldn't like to hear of this, I'm sure."
"Pulse 100," repeated the Professor. "Jerky, I suppose?"
"Did you hear my appeal to you as a family man?"
"Now, Smithers, you agreed to help me with my scientific observations, and I wish you'd keep to the letter of the agreement. Is your pulse jerky?"
"It is, and my hands are fairly itching to close round your throat, and my toes would like to kick you into eternity. Blyth, if I die, I'll haunt you and your family to the fifth generation. If you don't end up in a madhouse it won't be my fault. You scoundrel! You contemptible——"
Again the Professor hung up the receiver. "Strange," he soliloquised, "how mentally unbalanced these common men are! I can't imagine myself giving way to such ravings, whatever situation I was in. That's the advantage of birth and education. Yet, judging from the way in which Smithers expresses himself, he must be a man of very fair education. It's birth alone that tells in the long run," and the Professor stroked his stubble chin complacently.
The minutes passed. "He ought to be feeling it now. I'll ring him up." The Professor did so, but there was no reply. "He can't have collapsed already—a horse-soldier of thirty-five." Once more he rang. This time there was a slow response.