He smiled. "I imagine I can fix it." "Then I'll stay, of course. If you could fix the planetary orbits so that they were parabolas, Dr. Gryce, it would suit me exactly." He and Brett both were smiling, but Dr. Gryce's smile was momentary, for at once that indefinable air of trouble returned to him. "Frank," he said, "I hardly know how to begin telling you what we have done--are about to do. It seems curious also--I know it will strike you so, you have been such a friend to me and my children--that during all these years we have given you no hint of our purpose." "We have told no one," Brett put in: "no one in the world." I said nothing, but my curiosity increased. It was doubtless of grave import, this thing they had to tell me; the solemnity, earnestness which stamped them both was unmistakable. For a moment Dr. Gryce was silent; then he said abruptly, "You know, Frank, all my life I have been engaged with science. In a measure, I have been successful; there are a few devices which will bear my name when I am gone." I nodded. "I know that very well, Dr. Gryce." "But all those things," he added earnestly, "all that I stand for to the world, has really been of little importance to me. My main labor, goal, dream, if you will, I have never told anyone--not a living person except my children. For ten years past Brett has been helping me. And though you would hardly believe it, for the last year or two Martt and Frannie have been of material aid in the accomplishment of my purpose." "What branch of science?" I asked. "And you've accomplished it? You're ready to give it to the world?" "Accomplished it--yes. But we are not ready to give it to the world--perhaps we never shall. There would be evil in it--evil diabolical--in untrained or unscrupulous hands. But we are ready to test it--a practical test. Tonight, Frank, my boy Brett is going upon an adventure----" The fear which had been lurking in his eyes leaped to stamp his other features. He was afraid for Brett--afraid of this thing they were going to do. He had stopped abruptly; and more quietly he added: "I want you to understand me, Frank, and so for a moment we must be wholly theoretical. This thing we are about to do involves the construction of our whole material universe. You know, of course, that no limit has been found to the divisibility of matter?" His sudden question confused me. "You mean," I stammered, "that things can be infinitely small?"