“No. I should think not, indeed, after poor Constantine’s affair. Nevertheless, you absolutely refuse to believe--and I am speaking only of rational, scientific belief--that this most unpleasant telegnomy may kill me as it killed him.” “Did it kill him?” “There is nothing more certain. I tell you that because you know I was in no way responsible. I simply burnt him up, fused him, as the motor-men say, and it was his own fault, because he persisted in getting in my way. You know that resistance is the principle of the incandescent electric lamp. Of malice aforethought, the electrician sticks a thin carbon filament in the middle of a thick wire which will carry a certain current. The filament cannot carry the load, so it becomes red-hot and shrivels, the process being retarded by the creation of a vacuum. Constantine was the filament; that is all.” “Have you--er--are there other human filaments--” “I hope not. I have not encountered any, I am glad to say; but there is a reason for everything if only we can discover it, and my current is not murderous unless it has a certain direction and intensity. Both of those conditions have been absent for five years, so there are no other crimes, even involuntary ones, to my charge.” “I hope you are overrating your power, even in the case of Constantine,” I said. “It may be so. I am only guessing vaguely at a theory, and using the analogy of known things. But Macpherson was right when he described me as an induction coil. I give off magnetism at a terrific voltage. Apply this interesting mechanism to the ordinary means of seeing and hearing, which you may liken to a bar of soft iron, and you have the first feasible definition of telegnomy.” “I shall be only too glad to hear an intelligent scientific explanation of your sixth sense when the fog which has settled steadily over my wits since I reached London has cleared away,” I broke in. “What I am really concerned with now is the alarm which your father is experiencing on your account, and quite needlessly, I suppose.” He leaned confidentially nearer, his arms resting on his knees; and his finely chiseled face thrust forward with keen intentness. “You had better follow the track I am providing,” he said. “I have the consoling belief that you will ultimately comprehend me, and that will be something gained. Since we tried experiments in polarization in the _Mitre_ at Oxford I have advanced somewhat in knowledge. Of course it is difficult to describe thought in language adapted to mechanical apparatus, though, when comparisons are set up, the similarity of the body to a steam engine driving a dynamo, to which certain electrical devices are attached, is simply amazing. Have you ever studied electricity?” “No,” I said.