“I have only his word for it. But he’s a very tender-hearted man--for a surgeon. And he has a magnificent sense of justice. No, not in a thousand years would Doctor Shonto countenance anything like that.” “I’m glad to hear you say so,” she sighed. “I think that is simply horrible--ghoulish! But why was it, then, that the doctor refused to tell me anything about his work?” “Well, he has accomplished wonders, they say. And, as I told you before, he’s modest.” “Modesty reaps its reward only in fiction.” “I imagine the doctor is keener after results than rewards,” Andy mused. “I’ll tell you the little that I have gleaned--mostly about the thyroid gland, which, you know, is in our throats. “It seems that, if a fellow is shy on thyroid, he’s up against it in many ways. He may be slow to learn, clumsy, and may have an unbalanced sense of right and wrong. If he is fed the extract of the thyroid glands of sheep, this can be corrected. “It is the same with the other glands in our system. Some control one thing, some another. And, according to Doctor Shonto’s theory, the time is close at hand when deficient people can be entirely remade by injecting into them, or feeding them, the extract of the gland secretion that they’re shy on. This will revolutionize our social system, according to Doctor Shonto. We will know then that mental defectives, criminals, people who are petulant and hard to get along with--in fact, everybody who is in any way not up to normal--are so because of the absence, or the over-supply, of the secretions of certain glands. This science can correct, and the time may come when we will be able to do away with prisons and corrective institutions, and treat our fellowmen instead of mistreating them.” “Heaven speed the day!” said Charmian fervently. “But why, tell me, did Doctor Shonto hesitate about telling me that?” Andy shrugged his broad shoulders. “_Quien sabe_,” he said, “unless his modesty made him reticent. I think he’s afraid of being ridiculed as a visionary theorist.” “Doctor Shonto doesn’t strike me as a man who would shrink from ridicule, if he thought he was in the right,” Charmian declared. * * * * * Two days later the six who were interested in the opal project and the Valley of Arcana arrived in San Francisco late in the evening. It was after business hours, so nothing could be done toward drawing up the papers until the following morning. Charmian called up her attorney, briefly outlined the situation, and arranged for a conference at ten the following day. Then she went to her apartments with Mary Temple, while Andy and Dr. Shonto took rooms in the Palace Hotel. Smith Morley sent a telegram to his wife in Los Angeles, after which he and his partner sought a cheap rooming house on Kearny Street. They were to meet the others in the offices of Charmian’s lawyer at eleven o’clock next morning.