"well, i must say," said franstein as they sipped their coffee, "yours is the first glum face i've seen around here since that test this afternoon. here we are, within sight of our goal at last, and look at you! weren't you satisfied?"

"before i go into that," snow replied, "there are a few things i want to ask you."

"about the test?"

"in a way, but principally about richardson. have you ever had any reason to suspect that there is anything unusual about him?"

"in what way?"

"in your line."

franstein produced an enormous meerschaum pipe and proceeded to fill it from an untidy plastic pouch as he replied.

"yes, there is. one very unusual thing."

"there is?"

"he's got a very rare type of mind. it's probably perfectly balanced." the little man lit his pipe and continued: "the vast majority of us have some sort of imbalance, mentally. he hasn't. when i say imbalance, i mean the sort of thing that makes for genius, a phenomenal memory, an outstanding, effortless talent, amnesia, any form of insanity, or even something like a violent temper. anything, so to speak, overemphasized."

"is it physical? i mean, does it have anything to do with the size or weight of the brain, or anything like that?"

"you can take the brain of a genius and that of an ordinary person of average intelligence, and find them exactly the same in measurements and tissue condition. the popular conception of the genius as a man with a bulging forehead is so much nonsense. plenty of lunatics and retarded individuals have bulging foreheads."

"then what does it have to do with?"

"ah! that's the big question. nobody knows. you can take two men, equal physically in every respect, equal in upbringing, education, health, and with the same sized brain. one of them might turn out to be a genius, the other an average individual, and nobody knows what makes the difference. nobody knows what makes an infant prodigy, or what it is which enables a child of two to read easily, or a kid of five or six to play some instrument as if he'd been at it for years or compose symphonies, or master advanced mathematics. same answer. nobody knows. it's got nothing to do with heredity. so few geniuses have had genius offspring that they form exceptions to the rule. again, why does an infant prodigy sometimes lose his gift or talent entirely as he grows older? we don't know. all we know is that the gift or talent is there, but where it comes from, or why it is in one brain and not in another, we don't know. but surely you don't have to have me to tell you all this, phil? what's on your mind?"

"listen to this," snow said, and went to the tape recorder.

he rewound the tape to its beginning, depressed the switch marked play, and presently they heard the two voices, snow's and richardson's.

"now!" said snow as the point on the tape approached.

there came the sudden stopping of richardson's voice in the middle of an instrument reading, the short silence, then richardson's voice chanting the strange sounds. franstein took his pipe from between his teeth and his mouth fell open as he listened. the sounds ceased and richardson's voice resumed the instrument reading at the point at which it had left off.

"that's all," said snow, and switched off the machine.

franstein put his pipe back into his mouth. "is this the recording of this afternoon's test?"

"yes. what d'you make of it?"

"let's hear it again."

snow played back the recording a second and a third time, and then said: "well?"

franstein went to the table and helped himself to more coffee before replying. "it's a new one on me," he said presently. "i've got about a thousand recordings of languages and dialects from all over the world, and not one of them is anything like that."

"you think it is a language, not just sounds?"

"that we've got to find out, but i'd say, offhand, it's a primitive form of a language of some sort."

"then how the devil does it come out of a man like richardson who's never spoken anything but english—nor his forebears, for that matter?"

franstein shrugged his shoulders. "how does great music come out of a child of six, and so on? same question, same answer. nobody knows. have you spoken to richardson about it?"

"no. i rang his bungalow just before dinner and spoke to sandra. richardson was in the shower, and she said he was feeling fine. i didn't tell her about this, of course."

"then it couldn't have been some sort of mediumistic trance. they usually feel the effects of that sooner or later."

"you're not suggesting spiritualism, are you?" and in snow's voice was a note of amusement.

"don't laugh at it. if it's never been proved, neither has it been disproved."

and that touched off a discussion which went on for two hours. it covered many theories, many beliefs and faiths, all of which franstein spoke learnedly and with great respect. he talked of reincarnation, spiritualism, the mystery of time, and in this last connection, he paused in the middle of what he was saying and asked: "if this—" and he waved a hand toward the machine—"is a language, and i'm pretty sure it is, how can we be sure that it is a language of the past? why shouldn't it be one belonging to the future? all languages change with time. we'd probably find it very difficult to understand the english spoken ten centuries ago. what if this is the english that is going to be spoken a thousand years hence?"

to all of which snow listened with the skepticism of the exact scientist, and franstein, quick to notice this, went on: "you think yourselves clever, you exact scientists, and so you are. you can do a lot of things. you can split the atom, measure the stars, estimate the life expectancy of the sun; you have conquered distance, you have surrounded us with miracles like radio, television, invisible rays and all the rest of it. presently, you will conquer space and colonize the planets, and so it will go until it will seem to you that you will know everything. and you will too, except for one thing—the one final mystery, the last secret of the universe—man. and that means you and me, and any human being from a bum of skid row to the president. man is the eternal unknown quantity, and you've never had a more clear demonstration of this than what happened to richardson this afternoon. oh, i know what you've found out. you know all about man, his insides, his glands, muscles, nerves, brain, and so on. you can even display him on a table as a bucket of water and little piles of salts and minerals, and you can point to them and say: 'that is what man is made of.' only the other day i was reading about some scientist who thinks he's on the verge of producing a cell of life in a test tube. you may even do that, and you may find out one day how to put the water and the salts and the minerals together again and make a man. i've always thought the frankenstein story was a bit of inspired prophecy. but you still won't be able to explain why great music can come from a child of six, or what happened to richardson this afternoon." he lit his big pipe, which had gone out, and through the puffs asked: "and what do you propose to do about richardson?"

"run the test again tomorrow with him and see if this happens again, and then decide," replied snow.

"but even if nothing happens tomorrow, you can't ignore this."

"that's true. we've got to get to the bottom of it, and that's where you come in. you're the expert on this sort of thing."

franstein looked at his watch. "let's sleep on it and see what happens tomorrow, eh?"

he was on his way to the door when the telephone bell rang. snow picked up the receiver, and he heard him say: "sandra?... what?... i'll be right over. i've got abe franstein with me. i'll bring him with me. don't worry dear."

snow hung up. "something's happened to richardson," he said. "he's gone into a deep sleep and won't wake, and he's talking to himself in some funny language. let's go."

snow rummaged in a drawer of his desk and found a stethoscope.