"Do you call this Christian conduct, to imprison me here with this infernal block of fire? I tell you, man, it's poisoning me. It's choking me. It's getting to my brain. If you are a Christian, come down and let me out." "None of that hysterical sort of talk, Smithers," said the Professor sternly. "It's no good appealing for mercy. You are a thief, and you've got to be punished. Pull yourself together, and show what you are made of. You don't know what a lot of good your sufferings may do to humanity. I shall publish a full account of them in the _British Medical Journal_, and I am sure your family will be proud of you when they read it." "I haven't got a family, and if I had they shouldn't read your jibberings. I tell you that if you don't let me out I shall do something desperate!" "You can't," said the Professor. "There's nothing in the room except the radium and the telephone. If you knock the radium about you'll only make things worse for yourself, and if you damage the telephone you cut off your only link with the outside world. Be a man, Smithers. You've read of the Black Hole of Calcutta. The sufferings of the prisoners there were far worse than yours." "You are a scientific vampire--a howling chemical bounder!" came the response. "Tut, tut!" said the Professor serenely. "Do try and be calm. Take a stroll round. You might put the thermometer under your tongue again, and let me have the record. Nothing like filling your leisure moments with useful occupation." "Poor beggar!" he said to himself. "He's just beginning to realise things. Five centigrammes of radium chloride killed eight mice in three days; how long will it take an ounce of radium bromide to render a strong man insensible? That's the problem in rule of three, and it's high time that someone worked out the answer. "Well?" in reply to the bell. "Temperature, 102; pulse, 100. Look here, Blyth, I'm going dotty. If you won't have pity on me as a Christian, I appeal to you as a family man. Your people wouldn't like to hear of this, I'm sure." "Pulse 100," repeated the Professor. "Jerky, I suppose?" "Did you hear my appeal to you as a family man?" "Now, Smithers, you agreed to help me with my scientific observations, and I wish you'd keep to the letter of the agreement. Is your pulse jerky?" "It is, and my hands are fairly itching to close round your throat, and my toes would like to kick you into eternity. Blyth, if I die, I'll haunt you and your family to the fifth generation. If you don't end up in a madhouse it won't be my fault. You scoundrel! You contemptible----"