"You mind my telling you about Cyrus's theory of the cells of the body—that all they needed was the proper kind of stimulation, and they'd be as good as new? Well, he went one better than that sometimes. I never told you what his idea was—it sounded kind of daft-like when you didn't hear him laying it down himself—but I'll tell you now."
His voice sank impressively, and his junior partner grew vaguely uneasy. This was a most unsuitable place and hour to be discussing quack medical theories. He didn't approve of it at all.
"His idea was that every cell of the body—mine and yours, Andrew,"—(Andrew grew exceedingly uncomfortable: this verged on the indecent),—"every single cell of them is just a kind of wee vessel in which chemical and electrical changes are going on. While they keep brisk we keep young, and when they get off the boil, so to speak, we grow old. Well now, what's to hinder one stirring them up to boil faster and faster, instead of slower and slower? And if they once did that, of course you'd begin to grow young instead of going on getting old. Andrew, it's happened to me."
Andrew started.
"What has?"
"I'm growing young again!"
His junior partner looked at him for half a minute in dead silence. Then he decided that this statement had better be answered humorously.
"Is this story a sample?" he inquired.
"You don't believe me?"
Andrew's cheeks bulged in a faint smile.