"Something most extraordinary has happened. You've noticed a little kind of difference in me of late, possibly?" "I have," said Andrew, with an intonation that made his acquiescence particularly thorough. "A sort of cheerfulness and healthiness, and so on?" "And so on," assented Andrew. "Well, I've accounted for it at last!" "Oh?" said Andrew. This did not strike him as quite so interesting. He thought of the papers he had left, and glanced at his watch. "You mind my telling you about Cyrus's theory of the cells of the body--that all they needed was the proper kind of stimulation, and they'd be as good as new? Well, he went one better than that sometimes. I never told you what his idea was--it sounded kind of daft-like when you didn't hear him laying it down himself--but I'll tell you now." His voice sank impressively, and his junior partner grew vaguely uneasy. This was a most unsuitable place and hour to be discussing quack medical theories. He didn't approve of it at all. "His idea was that every cell of the body--mine and yours, Andrew,"--(Andrew grew exceedingly uncomfortable: this verged on the indecent),--"every single cell of them is just a kind of wee vessel in which chemical and electrical changes are going on. While they keep brisk we keep young, and when they get off the boil, so to speak, we grow old. Well now, what's to hinder one stirring them up to boil faster and faster, instead of slower and slower? And if they once did that, of course you'd begin to grow young instead of going on getting old. Andrew, it's happened to me." Andrew started. "What has?" "I'm growing young again!" His junior partner looked at him for half a minute in dead silence. Then he decided that this statement had better be answered humorously. "Is this story a sample?" he inquired. "You don't believe me?" Andrew's cheeks bulged in a faint smile. "Am I expected to?" "Look at my waistcoat--when did you ever see it as loose as that, and me healthier than I've been for years, and eating more? Look at my face--where are the wrinkles gone? Look at my head--how long is it since you've seen a patch of brown hair there?" To complete this overwhelming series of proofs, he leapt up, and with an agile jump on one foot whirled the other leg clean over the back of his chair. "It's twenty years and more since I last did that!" Andrew was fairly startled out of his skepticism now. He had the eyes of a goldfish, and his upper lip and swelling cheeks twitched nervously. "What an awful thing to happen!" he murmured. "It has happened, though," said his father. "But surely--oh, it must just be temporary. You don't think it will last, do you?" "I think nothing," replied Mr. Walkingshaw, with conviction. "I have no settled opinions left. I am a mass of cells in active eruption." He began to chuckle. "I'm like a dashed volcano, Andrew!"