"Even borium!" we exclaimed, delighted, and writing rapidly in our note book. Already we saw ourselves writing up as our headline, "Borium Shares Properties of Thorium." "Just what is it," said the Great Scientist, "that you want to know?" "Professor," we answered, "what our journal wants is a plain and simple explanation, so clear that even our readers can understand it, of the new scientific discoveries in radium. 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 to 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 ponder able magnitude." We nodded. We had already cleared our minds 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 ultra-microscopic." We hastened to assure the professor that, in accordance with the high standards of honor represented by our journal, we should of course regard anything that he might say as ultra-microscopic and treat it accordingly. "You say, then," we continued, "that the essence of the problem is the resolution of the atom. Do you think you can give us any idea of what the atom is?" The professor looked at us searchingly. We looked back at him, openly and frankly. The moment was critical for our interview. Could he do it? Were we the kind of person that he could give it to? Could we get it if he did? "I think I can," he said. "Let us begin with the assumption that the atom is an infinitesimal magnitude. Very good. Let us grant, then, that though it is imponderable and indivisible it must have a spatial content? You grant me this?" "We do," we said, "we do more than this, we GIVE it to you." "Very well. If spatial, it must have dimension: if dimension--form: let us assume 'ex hypothesi' the form to be that of a spheroid and see where it leads us." The professor was now intensely interested. He walked to and from in his laboratory. His features worked with excitement. We worked ours, too, as sympathetically as we could.