For a week Martin’s life had all the regularity of an escaped soldier in the enemy’s country, with the same agitation and the same desire to prowl at night. He was always sterilizing flasks, preparing media of various hydrogen-ion concentrations, copying his old notes into a new book lovingly labeled “X Principle, Staph,” and adding to it further observations. He tried, elaborately, with many flasks and many reseedings, to determine whether the X Principle would perpetuate itself indefinitely, whether when it was transmitted from tube to new tube of bacteria it would reappear, whether, growing by cell-division automatically, it was veritably a germ, a sub-germ infecting germs.
During the week Gottlieb occasionally peered over his shoulder, but Martin was unwilling to report until he should have proof, and one good night’s sleep, and perhaps even a shave.
When he was sure that the X Principle did reproduce itself indefinitely, so that in the tenth tube it grew to have as much effect as in the first, then he solemnly called on Gottlieb and laid before him his results, with his plans for further investigation.
The old man tapped his thin fingers on the report, read it intently, looked up and, not wasting time in congratulations, vomited questions:
Have you done dis? Why have you not done dat? At what temperature is the activity of the Principle at its maximum? Is its activity manifested on agar-solid medium?
“This is my plan for new work. I think you’ll find it includes most of your suggestions.”
“Huh!” Gottlieb ran through it and snorted, “Why have you not planned to propagate it on dead staph? That is most important of all.”
“Why?”
Gottlieb flew instantly to the heart of the jungle in which Martin had struggled for many days: “Because that will show whether you are dealing with a living virus.”
Martin was humbled, but Gottlieb beamed: