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 followed, and he, all unsuspecting, led me up a long flight of stairs and still another which wound serpent-like around a giant column. I wondered if he would ever reach the top; surely we were climbing to the skies, yet at the end heaven awaited. We finally reached the landing; that is, Mike did. He knocked discreetly upon a little square door which immediately opened and I hurried forward, saluting the loveliest woman in the world.

Of course I was requested to enter and Mike's gasp of amazement dissolved into a very kind, sympathetic smile, while Alpha Centauri laughed outright, the sweetest, merriest laughter imaginable. It set me all aflame. How beautiful she was with that great mass of jetty hair piled upon her head and the heavy-lashed, sidling eyes, evading mine. My pulses throbbed wildly.

The humor of the situation both thoroughly understood and enjoyed, but the impassioned motive was entirely beyond them.

As I entered the room the strong, pungent odor of chemicals warned me I had intruded the sanctified laboratory of Centauri, and to my chagrin, the old gentleman was there, polite, frigid, and deeply engrossed in a table crowded with queer little vials and tubes.

The walls of the room were lined with shelves filled with glass jars containing strange fluids and powders. There were huge glass mortar bowls, tall crystal pipes and cylinders, and several long, narrow tables. Over one a cloth had been hastily thrown.