I get worried, put on some clothes and go careful over to where the closed-up house is. It is only one story high, but it sprawls all over and it cost plenty. But it isn't closed up any longer. The windows are open and Mr. Vachti is sitting in a deck-chair on a terrace, smoking a long black cigar. Then I blink; there is Jode, sporty clothes and all, waddling out to speak to him. I see a coupla men working around what I guessed was the kitchen; then I see Prof Henry Barr in person. He has been a spry old goat, but he looks all drooped and unhappy now.
I tell you I get worried, then. Something has gone wrong. I hang around, hoping that Jode will get off by himself somewheres so I can speak to him without Mr. Vachti getting wise. Then that pooch comes snuffling through the woods behind me. He's waked up and trails me by smell. He is frisky, and I can't expect him to have sense enough not to run out squirming and wagging his tail if he sees somebody, or else barking at them. So I have to take him back to the boat and tie him up. I tie him to the mooring-rope, and feed him so he won't howl when I leave.
Nothin' has changed when I get back. Jode waddles around, lookin' bored, but I can tell he is nervous. He doesn't leave the house. Occasional he speaks to Mr. Vachti, like he is suggestin' somethin'. Mostly Mr. Vachti just don't pay any attention. Jode don't have much to say to the Prof. The Prof just sits slumped in a chair and looks miserable.
Noon comes, and I go back to the boat, feed the pooch and myself. I hang around near the house all afternoon. When I go back for something else to eat around supper-time the pooch near eats me up, he is that glad to see me. I take a good look at him. He isn't an old dog any more; he is a kind of gangling just-grown puppy, falling all over himself and just busting out with energy. That elixir has worked on him all right. I make sure he is tied up fast when I leave.
It is dark when I get back to the house. There are lights in the windows. I sneak up close and make sure there isn't nobody watching outside. Presently I duck up to where I can look in a window. It is open, and I could hear. Mr. Vachti says, in a voice that would curdle the Alkahest—that hydrofluoric acid that ate through the test-tube and the sink and the floor: "Since I feel no physical changes, I will give you two just twenty-four hours more!"
"Then what?" asks Jode, apprehensive.
"If by then I am not a young man again," says Mr. Vachti, spiteful, "—and I do not expect to be—my bodyguards will either put you each in a barrel of concrete and dump you overboard at sea—which I do not think they have lost the knack of—or else you go to jail."
Jode wheezes indignant: "But there has been no offense, Mr. Vachti!" he protests.
"You tried to swindle me," says Mr. Vachti peevish. "Both of you!"