"I must rule," said The Master soberly. "It is essential. If my little secret were known, intelligences would be magnified, but under many flags and with many aims. Scientists, with genius beside which Newton's pales, would seek out deadly weapons for war. The world would destroy itself of its own genius. But under my rule--" "Men go mad," said Bell coldly. The Master smiled reproachfully. "Ah, you are trying to make me angry, so that I will betray something! You are clever, Senor Bell. With my little medicine, in such quantities as I would administer it to you...." "You describe it," said Bell harshly and dogmatically, "as a brain stimulant. But it drives men mad." "To be sure," said The Master mildly. "It does. It is not excreted from the body save very, very slowly. But it changes in the blood stream. As--let us say--sugar changes into alcohol in digestion. The end-product of my little medicine is a poison which attacks the brain. But the slightest bit of unchanged medicine is an antidote. It is"--he smiled amiably--"it is as if sugar in the body changed to alcohol, and alcohol was a poison, but sugar--unchanged--was an antidote. That is it exactly. You see that I have taken my little medicine for years, and it has not harmed me." "Which," said Bell--and somehow his manner made utter silence fall so that each word fell separately into a vast stillness--"which, thank God, is the one thing that wins finally, for me!" * * * * * He stood up and laughed. Quite a genuine laugh. "Paula," he said comfortably, "get on the plane. In the cabin. Jamison and I are going to strip The Master." Paula stared. The Master looked at him blankly. Jamison frowned bewilderedly, but stood up grimly to obey. "But Senor," said The Master in gentle dignity, "merely to humiliate me--" "Not for that," said Bell. He laughed again. "But all the time I've been hearing about the stuff, I've noticed that nobody thought of it as a drug. It was a poison. People were poisoned. They did not become addicts. But you--you are the only addict to your drug." He turned to Jamison, his eyes gleaming. "Jamison," he said softly, "did you ever know of a drug addict who could bear to think of ever being without a supply of his drug--_right on his person_?" Jamison literally jumped. "By God! No!" The Master was quick. He was swarming up the plane-wing tip before Jamison reached him, and he kicked frenziedly when Jamison plucked him off. But then it was wholly, entirely, utterly horrible that the little white haired man, whose face and manner had seemed so cherubic and so bland, should shriek in so complete a blind panic as they forced his fingers open and took a fountain pen away from him. "This is it," said Bell in a deep satisfaction. "This is his point of weakness." * * * * *