We understand that you possess, more than any
other man, the gift of clear and lucid thought--"
The Professor nodded.
"And that you are able to express yourself with greater
simplicity than any two men now lecturing."
The Professor nodded again.
"Now, then," we said, spreading our notes on our knee,
"go at it. Tell us, and, through us, tell a quarter of
a million anxious readers just what all these new
discoveries are about."
"The whole thing," said the Professor, warming up to his
work as he perceived from the motions of our face and
ears our intelligent interest, "is simplicity itself. I
can give it to you in a word--"
"That's it," we said. "Give it to us that way."
"It amounts, if one may boil it down into a phrase--"
"Boil it, boil it," we interrupted.
"Amounts, if one takes the mere gist of it--"
"Take it," we said, "take it."
"Amounts to the resolution of the ultimate atom."
"Ha!" we exclaimed.
"I must ask you first to clear your mind," the Professor
continued, "of all conception of ponderable magnitude."
We nodded. We had already cleared our mind of this.
"In fact," added the Professor, with what we thought a
quiet note of warning in his voice, "I need hardly tell
you that what we are dealing with must be regarded as
altogether ultramicroscopic.
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