Page:Weird Tales Volume 6 Number 4 (1925-10).djvu/6



HAT," said Professor Xenophon Xerxes Zapt, the eminent investigator of the unknown in science, sometimes called "Unknown Quantity" Zapt, both from the line of his research, as well as the double X in his name; "is life?"

"Why—I don't know." Bob Sargent, fiancé of the professor's motherless daughter, Nellie, glanced from the record he was just removing from the phonograph in the living room of the Zapt home, to the little man, with graying mutton-chop whiskers, his body clad in the limp and comfortable if somewhat antiquated black alpaca coat he customarily wore about the house. "That is—I'm afraid I don't just appreciate the bearing of your question."

Xenophon Xerxes nodded. "I didn't expect you would." He continued to stare at the stalwart young attorney through the heavy lenses before his near-sighted eyes. "And you are not alone in your lack of comprehension, Robert. Nowadays the rising generation seems to consider life as something akin to that form of syncopated phonetic vibration commonly denominated—jazz."

"Well—possibly." Sargent slipped the record into the cabinet. "Does our music annoy you, professor?"

"That, Robert, is entirely aside from the point. Music is no more than sound, and—er—sound is a form of vibration, as you are presumably aware. And"—Xenophon Xerxes paused as though to give weight to the ensuing climax—"so is life, Robert—so is life."

"Oh, yes, of course," Bob hastened to agree. "I see what you mean now. And if both sound and life are vibrations, isn't that possibly the reason jazz has enjoyed such a vogue? Isn't it possible that there is a difference in the rate of vibration, and that this particular form of music quickens the ratio of the human—"