Nicholas trudged wheezily after Pyle, and they entered the laboratory.
“Hello, Doctor Pyle,” greeted Bobby radiantly. “Got something to show you! Wanted you to be the first to see it!”
He held up the gleaming little scalpel, dependent from yards of green-clad wiring, leading to a tall cabinet.
“Take it in your hand! … Now look!” He stepped to the switchboard and drew a lever.
“Look out!” he warned, as Pyle lifted the knife for closer inspection. “Don’t let it burn you! … Know what it is, don’t you?”
Pyle slowly nodded his head, eyes still intent upon the glowing blade.
“Humph! … Cuts and cauterizes instantly, eh? … Hummm! … Takes care of the haemorrhage as it goes, eh? … Hummm! … Well—that means we’re to have some new brain surgery, doesn’t it?”
He reached out a hairy hand.
“I needn’t tell you what you’ve done, Merrick! … Thank you for letting me be the first to congratulate you!”
Then, turning to old Nicholas, who had been standing by, his face puckered with baffled curiosity, he also extended his hand to him.
“Mr. Merrick, your grandson has invented a device that will completely revolutionize brain surgery, and make a new science of it! Operations which have never yet been successfully performed will now be comparatively safe. Within the next thirty days, his name will be as familiar in the clinics of Europe as yours is among manufacturers of motor cars!”
Old Nicholas’ chin vibrated spasmodically. All he could say was “Indeed! … Indeed!”
He threw an arm around his grandson’s broad shoulders, and mumbled,
“Why, Bobby! … Indeed!”
Pyle could not stay the night, but consented to remain for dinner which was called earlier than usual for his convenience. When he had gone, old Nicholas and Bobby, deep in their chairs in the library, talked of the invention.
To the latter’s pleased surprise, the old man asked questions which showed with what tenacity he had retained his interest in physics; for there had been a time when Nicholas Merrick had had to know a great deal about electricity.
Bobby was so delighted with the lucidity of his grandfather’s queries and the comments, that he drew the small coffee-table between their chairs and proceeded to make a detailed diagram of his coagulation cautery, Nicholas following with keen attention.
“It was the vacuum tubes that had you stumped, eh? … And the success of that came, you say, as a sort of bolt out of the blue … How do you mean?”
“Did you ever go to bed, Grandpère, with a problem on your mind, and find in the morning that you’d worked it, somehow, in your sleep?”
Nicholas rubbed his jaw.
“I’ve heard of such things. Can’t say I ever had that experience myself … Was that what happened to you?”
Bobby pushed the table away, and shifted his chair until their knees touched.
“Grandpère,” he said, soberly, “I’m going to tell you something that you may have trouble believing. It’s a long story, and I’ll have to begin at the beginning.”
Nicholas’ contribution to the conversation, during the next hour and a half, was limited to an occasional “Indeed! … Incredible! … You don’t tell me!”
When finally Bobby had made an end of it, the old fellow sat for a long time in deep meditation.
“I had never suspected, Bobby, that you were interested in religion.”
“Not sure that I am, Grandpère.”
“But that’s what this is! You’ve been talking about this ‘Major Personality’ that supplies our personalities with added energy, as we ask for it and obey the rules for getting it … Well—that’s God, isn’t it?”
“Doubtless … Just another way of saying it, maybe.”
“I’ve always shied off from the subject, Bobby. But, of late, it has been much on my mind. I’m quite disturbed, these days. I’m in a mental revolt against death. It’s sneaking up on me, and there’s nothing I can do about it. Death holds all the trump cards … It takes me a little longer to get out of bed in the morning than a month ago. It is just a bit harder to climb the stairs than it was last week. The old machine is running down. I don’t want to die. I understand that when a man actually faces up to it, nature compounds some sort of an anaesthesia which numbs his dread and makes it seem right enough; but that thought brings me small comfort. I have been accustomed to meeting all my emergencies with my eyes open, and I don’t get much consolation out of the thought that I’m to be doped into a dull apathy—like a convict on the way to execution—as I face this last one … I wouldn’t mind so much if there was anything—after that … Bobby, do you believe in immortality?”
“I wish I was as sure of a few other things that bother me,” replied Bobby, instantly, “as I am of the survival of personality. Once you’ve experienced a vital contact with the Major Personality, Grandpère, you become aware that the power of it is quite independent of material things … To my mind, that’s clear. Personality is all that matters! The roses in that vase have no meaning for each other; no meaning for themselves. A tiger doesn’t know he is a tiger. Nothing in the world has any reality except as it is declared real by our personalities. Count personality out of the scheme, and there’s no significance left to anything! Include personality in the scheme, and the whole business is automatically explained!
“I’ve thought a good deal about the soul lately, Grandpère. It strikes me that the things one reads about souls are frightfully misleading. They inquire, ‘What are you doing to, for, and with your soul?’ as they might ask ‘When are you going to turn in your old car?’ … I can’t say ‘my soul,’ as I would say ‘my hat,’ or ‘my canoe,’ or ‘my liver.’ … I am a soul! I have a body! My body is wearing out, and when I can’t tinker it back into service any more, I’ll drive it out to the junk-pile; but I don’t have to be junked with it! I’m tied up to the Major Personality! … like a beam
