Page:The Poison Belt - Conan Doyle, 1913.djvu/22

 Rh  "Get what out of him?" I asked.

"What has he been doing?"

"Haven't you seen his letter on 'Scientific Possibeelities' in to-day's Times?"

"No."

McArdle dived down and picked a copy from the floor.

"Read it aloud," said he, indicating a column with his finger. "I'd be glad to hear it again, for I am not sure now that I have the man's meaning clear in my head."

This was the letter which I read to the news editor of the Gazette:—

",—I have read with amusement, not wholly unmixed with some less complimentary emotion, the complacent and wholly fatuous letter of James Wilson MacPhail, which has lately appeared in your colunms upon the subject of the blurring of Frauenhofer's lines in the spectra both of the planets and of the fixed stars. He