‘It’s my own fault—entirely my own fault!’ Johannes kept muttering as he led the youngsters back into the cabin and closed the door. ‘I was tempted. Yes ... Like any fool I was tempted—Bah! My own fault!’
And he stirred the fire so roughly that sparks and coals flew everywhere.
‘But, Sir,’ said Anne gently, ‘how do you mean—your own fault? What has happened? What harm’s been done?’
Almost savagely the philosopher turned from the fire and faced her, the poker in his hand. He looked for a moment like some red demon about to spring upon an enemy.
‘What harm?’ he yelped. ‘You’ve ruined my peace—you and your shell ... There, there! You didn’t mean to, I know. ‘Twas I should have known better. But, but—but—Poof! But, but’ (he spluttered almost like a rain-soaked candle) ‘how could I know the wretched thing would really work?’
‘Well,’ said Anne very, very softly, ‘we told you it was peculiar, you know.’
‘Yes, yes,’ muttered the philosopher as he wiped his forehead of the sweat caused by the fire’s heat and his own fussing. ‘You knew more than I—I with all my studying and labour. There’s no science in it, no chemistry, no natural law, no sense whatever, and yet it works. If I were not a chemist I would call it magic, I suppose ... Well, the greatest thinkers have warned us not to be proud of our little knowledge.’
‘Then you mean to say that something happened, Sir,’ said Giles, coming forward eagerly. ‘You—you did hear voices?’
Again Johannes mopped his brow while with his poker he made another attack upon the fire, jabbing it viciously.
‘Yes,’ he said at last. ‘I heard. I heard all the other scientists and alchemists and philosophers—all over the world—saying what they thought of my last book. And they didn’t say one single decent thing. All bad. All bad ... Jealousy, that’s what it is. At first I wouldn’t listen and I laid the shell down upon a stool and went on with my work. Because, after all, what do I care what the silly dummies say? I know when I am right, don’t I? Then, unthinkingly, I sat down upon the stool and the shell was hot and burnt me—or I thought it had. And I knew that someone else was talking about me. I wondered if perhaps this time it might be something good, of scientific value, you know. So I took it up.’