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170 is on your mind before we retire, or will it keep till morning?"

"I should rather tell you now, if you don't object."

"Oh, I don't object. I'm a 'till-daylight-doth-appear' chap when I've good company. I was merely thinking you looked a little tired."

"This champagne is so excellent, my lord, that I feel I should be libelling it if I confessed to fatigue. I suppose you think I'm in the last stages of consumption."

"You're not looking very well, but I hope it's nothing so bad as that."

"It isn't, and I may add that it is nothing infectious, otherwise I should never have presented myself to you. I have come to my present condition through experimenting with the air that surrounds us, and I became so interested in my discoveries that I failed to notice what an effect they were producing upon my health."

"Have you not consulted a physician?"

"Oh, yes, several of them. They are much interested in me: in fact, I feel that I am not Professor Marlow to them at all, but merely a very puzzling specimen of humanity. But you will be wondering, my lord, why it is that I come to you without any letter of introduction when, perhaps, I might have obtained such a document. It all came about through my overhearing a conversation that was not intended for my ears. I dislike to