as in it nothing that is morally obligatory. Is not that the idea that you intended to convey?" he asked the lady.
The lady, with a nod of her head, expressed her approval of this translation of her thoughts.
"Then," resumed the lawyer, continuing his remarks.
But the nervous gentleman, evidently scarcely able to contain himself, without allowing the lawyer to finish, asked:
"Yes, sir. But what are we to understand by this love that alone consecrates marriage?"
"Everybody knows what love is," said the lady.
"But I don't know, and I should like to know how you define it."
"How? It is very simple," said the lady.
And she seemed thoughtful, and then said:
"Love . . . love . . . is a preference for one man or one woman to the exclusion of all others. . . ."
"A preference for how long? . . . For a month, two days, or half an hour?" said the nervous gentleman, with special irritation.
"No, permit me, you evidently are not talking of the sa
are as much concerned as I; therefore, I propose that we should contrive measures and act in concert: communicate to me what you think the likeliest way to mortify her, while I, on my side, will inform you what my desire of revenge shall suggest to me." After this wicked agreement, the two sisters saw each other frequently, and consulted how they might disturb and interrupt the happiness of the queen. They proposed a great many ways, but in deliberating about the manner of executing them, found so many difficulties that they durst not attempt them. In the meantime, with a detestable dissimulation, they often went together to make her visits, and every time showed her all the marks of affection they could devise, to persuade her how overjoyed they were to have a sister raised to so high a fortune. The queen, on her part, constantly received them with all the demonstrations of esteem they could expect from so near a relative. Some time after her marriage, the expected birth of an heir gave great joy to the que
boiling water, and after cooling for a few minutes, it is placed in a vessel containing finely chopped ice (Fig. 10). The mercury column falls rapidly, but finally remains stationary, and at this level another scratch is made on the tube and the point is marked 32°. The space between these two points, which represent the temperatures of boiling water and of melting ice, is divided into 180 equal parts called degrees. The thermometer in use in the United States is marked in this way and is called the Fahrenheit thermometer after its designer. Before the degrees are etched on the thermometer the open end of the tube is sealed.
[Illustration: FIG. 9.--Determining one of the fixed points of a thermometer.]
The Centigrade thermometer, in use in foreign countries and in all scientific work, is similar to the Fahrenheit except that the fixed points are marked 100° and 0°, and the interval between the points is divided into 100 equal parts instead of into 180.
The boiling point of
thebrain. In fact, it does not, for the long-headed are notlong-brained, nor are the short-headed short-brained. Second, thesize and disposal of the sinuses, the state of nutrition inchildhood have far more to do with the "bumps" of the head thanbrain or character. The bump of philoprogenitiveness has in myexperience more often been the result of rickets than a sign ofparental love.
[1] It is to be remembered that phrenology had a good standing atone time, though it has since lapsed into quackdom. This is thehistory of many a "short cut" into knowledge. Thus the wisest menof past centuries believed in astrology. Paracelsus, who gave tothe world the use of Hg in therapeutics, relied in large part forhis diagnosis and cures upon alchemy and astrology.
Without meaning to pun, we may dismiss the claims of palmistryoffhand. Normally the lines of the hand do not change from birthto death, but character does change. The hand, its shape and itstexture are markedly influenced by illness,[1] toil
d. You may look in Browne Faber's book, if you like, and you will find that to the present day men of science are unable to account for the presence, or to specify the functions of a certain group of nerve-cells in the brain. That group is, as it were, land to let, a mere waste place for fanciful theories. I am not in the position of Browne Faber and the specialists, I am perfectly instructed as to the possible functions of those nerve-centers in the scheme of things. With a touch I can bring them into play, with a touch, I say, I can set free the current, with a touch I can complete the communication between this world of sense and--we shall be able to finish the sentence later on. Yes, the knife is necessary; but think what that knife will effect. It will level utterly the solid wall of sense, and probably, for the first time since man was made, a spirit will gaze on a spirit-world. Clarke, Mary will see the god Pan!"
"But you remember what you wrote to me? I thought it would be requisite that she--"
The old Rebel cursed. "Gehenna of a big crop; we're up to our necks in melons. This time next year we'll be washing our feet in brandy."
"Hold onto it and age it; you ought to see what they charge for a drink of Poictesme brandy on Terra."
"This isn't Terra, and we aren't selling it by the drink," Colonel Zareff said. "We're selling it at Storisende Spaceport, for what the freighter captains pay us. You've been away too long, Conn. You've forgotten what it's like to live in a poor-house."
The cargo was coming off, now. Cask staves, and more cask staves. Zareff swore bitterly at the sight, and then they started toward the wide doors of the shipping floor, inside the Airlines Building. Outgoing cargo was beginning to come out; casks of brandy, of course, and a lot of boxes and crates, painted light blue and bearing the yellow trefoil of the Third Fleet-Army Force and the eight-pointed red star of Ordnance. Cases of rifles; square boxes of ammunition; crated auto-cannon. Conn turned to hi
r sandwiches on white bread she said, "So, tell me Paul, why are you getting fired tomorrow?"
"I'm not really entirely sure," he said, although this was a stalling tactic. He knew pretty well why he was getting fired; he just didn't quite know how to put it into words. It'd only been a couple of hours since his high school friend and CEO had told him what was happening. "I mean, they gave me reasons, but they're not really reasons. They're not things I did wrong."
"What does that mean? They didn't like your looks?"
"Yeah, basically," said Paul. "More to the point, they didn't like the look of how I was doing things. What I mean is, I'm not a tech guy right? I'm an artist and a writer. I'm used to working at home and scribbling away and meeting my deadlines. So when I helped start this company, I figured it would be mostly the same. I figured I'd sit in my office and do my work and hit my deadlines and go to my meetings and all that."
"But you didn't do that?" asked Chloe as she pla
he worked it to make us think him a nut. He certainly is clever. I take off my hat to him--he's a wonder!"
"And what is your idea? Where do we come in?"
"You come in by getting that solution away from Seaton and Crane, and furnishing the money to develop the stuff and to build, under my direction, such a power-plant as the world never saw before."
"Why get that particular solution? Couldn't we buy up some platinum wastes and refine them?"
"Not a chance," replied the scientist. "We have refined platinum residues for years, and never found anything like that before. It is my idea that the stuff, whatever it is, was present in some particular lot of platinum in considerable quantities as an impurity. Seaton hasn't all of it there is in the world, of course, but the chance of finding any more of it without knowing exactly what it is or how it reacts is extremely slight. Besides, we must have exclusive control. How could we make any money out of it if Crane operates a rival company and
e organized cliques which smuggled ashore certain nameless and unclassified Asian dregs wisely turned back by Ellis Island. In the teeming rookeries of Parker Place--since renamed--where Suydam had his basement flat, there had grown up a very unusual colony of unclassified slant-eyed folk who used the Arabic alphabet but were eloquently repudiated by the great mass of Syrians in and around Atlantic Avenue. They could all have been deported for lack of credentials, but legalism is slow-moving, and one does not disturb Red Hook unless publicity forces one to.
These creatures attended a tumbledown stone church, used Wednesdays as a dance-hall, which reared its Gothic buttresses near the vilest part of the waterfront. It was nominally Catholic; but priests throughout Brooklyn denied the place all standing and authenticity, and policemen agreed with them when they listened to the noises it emitted at night. Malone used to fancy he heard terrible cracked bass notes from a hidden organ far underground when th
fall and possible demise-- for where was he? what was he? Shading her eyes, she looked along the road for Captain Barfoot--yes, there he was, punctual as ever; the attentions of the Captain--all ripened Betty Flanders, enlarged her figure, tinged her face with jollity, and flooded her eyes for no reason that any one could see perhaps three times a day.
True, there's no harm in crying for one's husband, and the tombstone, though plain, was a solid piece of work, and on summer's days when the widow brought her boys to stand there one felt kindly towards her. Hats were raised higher than usual; wives tugged their husbands' arms. Seabrook lay six foot beneath, dead these many years; enclosed in three shells; the crevices sealed with lead, so that, had earth and wood been glass, doubtless his very face lay visible beneath, the face of a young man whiskered, shapely, who had gone out duck-shooting and refused to change his boots.
"Merchant of this city," the tombstone said; though why Betty Flanders h
as in it nothing that is morally obligatory. Is not that the idea that you intended to convey?" he asked the lady.
The lady, with a nod of her head, expressed her approval of this translation of her thoughts.
"Then," resumed the lawyer, continuing his remarks.
But the nervous gentleman, evidently scarcely able to contain himself, without allowing the lawyer to finish, asked:
"Yes, sir. But what are we to understand by this love that alone consecrates marriage?"
"Everybody knows what love is," said the lady.
"But I don't know, and I should like to know how you define it."
"How? It is very simple," said the lady.
And she seemed thoughtful, and then said:
"Love . . . love . . . is a preference for one man or one woman to the exclusion of all others. . . ."
"A preference for how long? . . . For a month, two days, or half an hour?" said the nervous gentleman, with special irritation.
"No, permit me, you evidently are not talking of the sa
are as much concerned as I; therefore, I propose that we should contrive measures and act in concert: communicate to me what you think the likeliest way to mortify her, while I, on my side, will inform you what my desire of revenge shall suggest to me." After this wicked agreement, the two sisters saw each other frequently, and consulted how they might disturb and interrupt the happiness of the queen. They proposed a great many ways, but in deliberating about the manner of executing them, found so many difficulties that they durst not attempt them. In the meantime, with a detestable dissimulation, they often went together to make her visits, and every time showed her all the marks of affection they could devise, to persuade her how overjoyed they were to have a sister raised to so high a fortune. The queen, on her part, constantly received them with all the demonstrations of esteem they could expect from so near a relative. Some time after her marriage, the expected birth of an heir gave great joy to the que
boiling water, and after cooling for a few minutes, it is placed in a vessel containing finely chopped ice (Fig. 10). The mercury column falls rapidly, but finally remains stationary, and at this level another scratch is made on the tube and the point is marked 32°. The space between these two points, which represent the temperatures of boiling water and of melting ice, is divided into 180 equal parts called degrees. The thermometer in use in the United States is marked in this way and is called the Fahrenheit thermometer after its designer. Before the degrees are etched on the thermometer the open end of the tube is sealed.
[Illustration: FIG. 9.--Determining one of the fixed points of a thermometer.]
The Centigrade thermometer, in use in foreign countries and in all scientific work, is similar to the Fahrenheit except that the fixed points are marked 100° and 0°, and the interval between the points is divided into 100 equal parts instead of into 180.
The boiling point of
thebrain. In fact, it does not, for the long-headed are notlong-brained, nor are the short-headed short-brained. Second, thesize and disposal of the sinuses, the state of nutrition inchildhood have far more to do with the "bumps" of the head thanbrain or character. The bump of philoprogenitiveness has in myexperience more often been the result of rickets than a sign ofparental love.
[1] It is to be remembered that phrenology had a good standing atone time, though it has since lapsed into quackdom. This is thehistory of many a "short cut" into knowledge. Thus the wisest menof past centuries believed in astrology. Paracelsus, who gave tothe world the use of Hg in therapeutics, relied in large part forhis diagnosis and cures upon alchemy and astrology.
Without meaning to pun, we may dismiss the claims of palmistryoffhand. Normally the lines of the hand do not change from birthto death, but character does change. The hand, its shape and itstexture are markedly influenced by illness,[1] toil
d. You may look in Browne Faber's book, if you like, and you will find that to the present day men of science are unable to account for the presence, or to specify the functions of a certain group of nerve-cells in the brain. That group is, as it were, land to let, a mere waste place for fanciful theories. I am not in the position of Browne Faber and the specialists, I am perfectly instructed as to the possible functions of those nerve-centers in the scheme of things. With a touch I can bring them into play, with a touch, I say, I can set free the current, with a touch I can complete the communication between this world of sense and--we shall be able to finish the sentence later on. Yes, the knife is necessary; but think what that knife will effect. It will level utterly the solid wall of sense, and probably, for the first time since man was made, a spirit will gaze on a spirit-world. Clarke, Mary will see the god Pan!"
"But you remember what you wrote to me? I thought it would be requisite that she--"
The old Rebel cursed. "Gehenna of a big crop; we're up to our necks in melons. This time next year we'll be washing our feet in brandy."
"Hold onto it and age it; you ought to see what they charge for a drink of Poictesme brandy on Terra."
"This isn't Terra, and we aren't selling it by the drink," Colonel Zareff said. "We're selling it at Storisende Spaceport, for what the freighter captains pay us. You've been away too long, Conn. You've forgotten what it's like to live in a poor-house."
The cargo was coming off, now. Cask staves, and more cask staves. Zareff swore bitterly at the sight, and then they started toward the wide doors of the shipping floor, inside the Airlines Building. Outgoing cargo was beginning to come out; casks of brandy, of course, and a lot of boxes and crates, painted light blue and bearing the yellow trefoil of the Third Fleet-Army Force and the eight-pointed red star of Ordnance. Cases of rifles; square boxes of ammunition; crated auto-cannon. Conn turned to hi
r sandwiches on white bread she said, "So, tell me Paul, why are you getting fired tomorrow?"
"I'm not really entirely sure," he said, although this was a stalling tactic. He knew pretty well why he was getting fired; he just didn't quite know how to put it into words. It'd only been a couple of hours since his high school friend and CEO had told him what was happening. "I mean, they gave me reasons, but they're not really reasons. They're not things I did wrong."
"What does that mean? They didn't like your looks?"
"Yeah, basically," said Paul. "More to the point, they didn't like the look of how I was doing things. What I mean is, I'm not a tech guy right? I'm an artist and a writer. I'm used to working at home and scribbling away and meeting my deadlines. So when I helped start this company, I figured it would be mostly the same. I figured I'd sit in my office and do my work and hit my deadlines and go to my meetings and all that."
"But you didn't do that?" asked Chloe as she pla
he worked it to make us think him a nut. He certainly is clever. I take off my hat to him--he's a wonder!"
"And what is your idea? Where do we come in?"
"You come in by getting that solution away from Seaton and Crane, and furnishing the money to develop the stuff and to build, under my direction, such a power-plant as the world never saw before."
"Why get that particular solution? Couldn't we buy up some platinum wastes and refine them?"
"Not a chance," replied the scientist. "We have refined platinum residues for years, and never found anything like that before. It is my idea that the stuff, whatever it is, was present in some particular lot of platinum in considerable quantities as an impurity. Seaton hasn't all of it there is in the world, of course, but the chance of finding any more of it without knowing exactly what it is or how it reacts is extremely slight. Besides, we must have exclusive control. How could we make any money out of it if Crane operates a rival company and
e organized cliques which smuggled ashore certain nameless and unclassified Asian dregs wisely turned back by Ellis Island. In the teeming rookeries of Parker Place--since renamed--where Suydam had his basement flat, there had grown up a very unusual colony of unclassified slant-eyed folk who used the Arabic alphabet but were eloquently repudiated by the great mass of Syrians in and around Atlantic Avenue. They could all have been deported for lack of credentials, but legalism is slow-moving, and one does not disturb Red Hook unless publicity forces one to.
These creatures attended a tumbledown stone church, used Wednesdays as a dance-hall, which reared its Gothic buttresses near the vilest part of the waterfront. It was nominally Catholic; but priests throughout Brooklyn denied the place all standing and authenticity, and policemen agreed with them when they listened to the noises it emitted at night. Malone used to fancy he heard terrible cracked bass notes from a hidden organ far underground when th
fall and possible demise-- for where was he? what was he? Shading her eyes, she looked along the road for Captain Barfoot--yes, there he was, punctual as ever; the attentions of the Captain--all ripened Betty Flanders, enlarged her figure, tinged her face with jollity, and flooded her eyes for no reason that any one could see perhaps three times a day.
True, there's no harm in crying for one's husband, and the tombstone, though plain, was a solid piece of work, and on summer's days when the widow brought her boys to stand there one felt kindly towards her. Hats were raised higher than usual; wives tugged their husbands' arms. Seabrook lay six foot beneath, dead these many years; enclosed in three shells; the crevices sealed with lead, so that, had earth and wood been glass, doubtless his very face lay visible beneath, the face of a young man whiskered, shapely, who had gone out duck-shooting and refused to change his boots.
"Merchant of this city," the tombstone said; though why Betty Flanders h