"Positive matter is the male essence; negative matter, the female. The ultimate quintessence emanating from the supreme source is a wave vibration independent of time and space. As this travels outward through the atoms and molecules of the ultimate solid—these atoms and molecules which we call stars and planets and which compose this solid—the combinations between these positive and negative ions or wave vibrations produce the varying manifestations of mind and matter. They are all self-perpetuating, yet always passing into new forms. Thus matter begets matter; thought, thought."
"It sounds as plausible as any explanation," I said politely, turning over a page of my book. "I'm going to bed," and I shut myself up in my bedroom. I had had philosophy enough for one evening.
For a week or ten days Prospero worked steadily and amazingly in the laboratory. He did his experiments with skill, ease, and rapidity; furthermore, he put no obstacles in the way of my keeping full records of his work. One day, however, when he returned in the afternoon he was much depressed. His cigarette reappeared upon his lower lip and he spilt its ashes into various mixtures, until, in a rage, he hurled an eggshell Bohemian glass beaker partly full of nitric acid into a far corner of the room. By acting promptly I saved the factory from a fire and the room from any serious damage. Prospero contemplated me gloomily when I had finished clearing up his mess.
"That's a little too risky to be funny," I rebuked him, with pardonable annoyance. "It's all right to have nerves for one's personal pleasure, but endangering company property is another matter."
His reply was a series of picturesque and obscene oaths. The final intimation was that the next time I might expect nitric acid or worse at my head, instead of at a corner of the room. He flatly refused to continue any more experiments that afternoon and sat until six o'clock watching a flickering electric current passing through a vacuum tube. I reported the situation to Knowlton at the office.
"What do you make of it, Ted?" Knowlton asked.
"Getting ready to shoot himself full of morphine, I take it."
"He hasn't any money."
"I think he probably has a reserve supply of the drug—a fiend isn't likely to be without it."