"I shall come at my discovery in due course, Mr. Popham," said the professor, who was a wiry little man with a bald head and bead-like black eyes. "I thank you for coming here. Emmet Gilhooly, Augustus Popham, J. Archibald Meigs, and Hannibal Markham are stars of the first magnitude in the skies of speculation, and I esteem myself fortunate in arousing their interest."
A faintness seized me as these names, each an "open sesame" to the world of finance, fell glibly from the professor's tongue. I was all but cheek by jowl with representatives of billions.
Augustus Popham turned his head to give Emmet Gilhooly a plebeian wink. Gilhooly smiled behind his smooth white hand. J. Archibald Meigs leaned over to whisper something to Hannibal Markham, who was affixing a pair of gold eyeglasses to his Roman nose, whereupon both gentlemen suppressed a titter.
A doubt of the sincerity of all four broke over me. They were there to have sport with this bald little man with the beady eyes and the bee in his bonnet. I chuckled grimly as I thought of how the tables would presently be turned. I do not know whether the professor was as keen as I to detect these evidences of insincerity. If he was, he gave no sign.
"I am sixty-five," said he, "and my life work has been the discovery which I am about to bring to your august attention. Perhaps some of you gentlemen have read my paper on 'The Mutability of Newtonian Law'?"
The gentlemen acknowledged that they had not. Professor Quinn seemed disappointed.
"If you had read that," he continued, "you would have prepared yourselves for an understanding of my theory and the demonstration of it which I am about to give. Let me ask you this: When an apple leaves its parent branch, why is it that it falls downward instead of upward?"
The Napoleons of finance stared at one another. J. Archibald Meigs went so far as to tap a suggestive finger against his forehead.
"Gravity," said the professor. "It is that which draws every atom on the surface of the earth directly toward the earth's centre; it is that which chains our feet to this planet and keeps us from falling through interstellar space; it is even that which keeps our little world from flying apart and dissipating itself in dust throughout the great void. It is a simple proposition simply stated, and I trust you follow me?"
They did follow him, and so signified.