The sunburnt man's story degenerated again. "Think of it," he said,

when he emerged to linguistic purity once more. "Forty thousand

pounds worth of gold."



"Did the little missionary come back?" I asked.



"Oh, yes! Bless him! And he pledged his reputation there was a man

inside the god, and started out to see as much with tremendous

ceremony. But there wasn't--he got sold again. I always did hate

scenes and explanations, and long before he came I was out of it

all--going home to Banya along the coast, hiding in bushes by day,

and thieving food from the villages by night. Only weapon, a spear.

No clothes, no money. Nothing. My face was my fortune, as the saying

is. And just a squeak of eight thousand pounds of gold--fifth share.

But the natives cut up rusty, thank goodness, because they thought

it was him had driven their luck away."





8. THE NEW ACCELERATOR



Certainly, if ever a man found a guinea when he was looking for a pin

it is my good friend Professor Gibberne. I have heard before of

investigators overshooting the mark, but never quite to the extent

that he has done. He has really, this time at any rate, without any

touch of exaggeration in the phrase, found something to revolutionise

human life. And that when he was simply seeking an all-round nervous

stimulant to bring languid people up to the stresses of these pushful

days. I have tasted the stuff now several times, and I cannot do

better than describe the effect the thing had on me. That there are

astonishing experiences in store for all in search of new sensations

will become apparent enough.



Professor Gibberne, as many people know, is my neighbour in Folkestone.

Unless my memory plays me a trick, his portrait at various ages

has already appeared in The Strand Magazine--I think late in 1899;

but I am unable to look it up because I have lent that volume to

some one who has never sent it back. The reader may, perhaps,

recall the high forehead and the singularly long black eyebrows

that give such a Mephistophelian touch to his face. He occupies one

of those pleasant little detached houses in the mixed style that

make the western end of the Upper Sandgate Road so interesting.

His is the one with the Flemish gables and the Moorish portico,

and it is in the little room with the mullioned bay window that

he works when he is down here, and in which of an evening we have

so often smoked and talked together. He is a mighty jester, but,

besides, he likes to talk to me about his work; he is one of those

men who find a help and stimulus in talking, and so I have been

able to follow the conception of the New Accelerator right up from

a very early stage. Of course, the greater portion of his experimental



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