—­You need not ask me that,—­I answered.  It is very plainly turbid.  I should think that some sediment had been shaken up in it.  What is it, Elixir Vitae or Aurum potabile?

—­Something that means more than alchemy ever did!  Boiled just three hours, and as clear as a bell until within the last few days; since then has been clouding up.

—­I began to form a pretty shrewd guess at the meaning of all this, and to think I knew very nearly what was coming next.  I was right in my conjecture.  The Master broke off the sealed end of his little flask, took out a small portion of the fluid on a glass rod, and placed it on a slip of glass in the usual way for a microscopic examination.

—­One thousand diameters,—­he said, as he placed it on the stage of the microscope.—–­We shall find signs of life, of course.—­He bent over the instrument and looked but an instant.

—­There they are!—­he exclaimed,—­look in.

I looked in and saw some objects: 

The straight linear bodies were darting backward and forward in every direction.  The wavy ones were wriggling about like eels or water-snakes.  The round ones were spinning on their axes and rolling in every direction.  All of them were in a state of incessant activity, as if perpetually seeking something and never finding it.

They are tough, the germs of these little bodies, said the Master. —–­Three hours’ boiling has n’t killed ’em.  Now, then, let us see what has been the effect of six hours’ boiling.

He took up another flask just like the first, containing fluid and hermetically sealed in the same way.

—­Boiled just three hours longer than the other, he said,—­six hours in all.  This is the experimentum crucis.  Do you see any cloudiness in it?

—­Not a sign of it; it is as clear as crystal, except that there may be a little sediment at the bottom.

—­That is nothing.  The liquid is clear.  We shall find no signs of life.—–­He put a minute drop of the liquid under the microscope as before.  Nothing stirred.  Nothing to be seen but a clear circle of light.  We looked at it again and again, but with the same result.

—­Six hours kill ’em all, according to this experiment,—­said the Master.—–­Good as far as it goes.  One more negative result.  Do you know what would have happened if that liquid had been clouded, and we had found life in the sealed flask?  Sir, if that liquid had held life in it the Vatican would have trembled to hear it, and there would have been anxious questionings and ominous whisperings in the halls of Lambeth palace!  The accepted cosmogonies on trial, sir!