“I’ll look out for that buffalo,” said Lord John.

“And I for the football match.”

“It may be that you are right, Challenger,” said Summerlee in a chastened voice.  “I am willing to admit that my turn of mind is critical rather than constructive and that I am not a ready convert to any new theory, especially when it happens to be so unusual and fantastic as this one.  However, as I cast my mind back over the events of the morning, and as I reconsider the fatuous conduct of my companions, I find it easy to believe that some poison of an exciting kind was responsible for their symptoms.”

Challenger slapped his colleague good-humouredly upon the shoulder.  “We progress,” said he.  “Decidedly we progress.”

“And pray, sir,” asked Summerlee humbly, “what is your opinion as to the present outlook?”

“With your permission I will say a few words upon that subject.”  He seated himself upon his desk, his short, stumpy legs swinging in front of him.  “We are assisting at a tremendous and awful function.  It is, in my opinion, the end of the world.”

The end of the world!  Our eyes turned to the great bow-window and we looked out at the summer beauty of the country-side, the long slopes of heather, the great country-houses, the cozy farms, the pleasure-seekers upon the links.

The end of the world!  One had often heard the words, but the idea that they could ever have an immediate practical significance, that it should not be at some vague date, but now, to-day, that was a tremendous, a staggering thought.  We were all struck solemn and waited in silence for Challenger to continue.  His overpowering presence and appearance lent such force to the solemnity of his words that for a moment all the crudities and absurdities of the man vanished, and he loomed before us as something majestic and beyond the range of ordinary humanity.  Then to me, at least, there came back the cheering recollection of how twice since we had entered the room he had roared with laughter.  Surely, I thought, there are limits to mental detachment.  The crisis cannot be so great or so pressing after all.

“You will conceive a bunch of grapes,” said he, “which are covered by some infinitesimal but noxious bacillus.  The gardener passes it through a disinfecting medium.  It may be that he desires his grapes to be cleaner.  It may be that he needs space to breed some fresh bacillus less noxious than the last.  He dips it into the poison and they are gone.  Our Gardener is, in my opinion, about to dip the solar system, and the human bacillus, the little mortal vibrio which twisted and wriggled upon the outer rind of the earth, will in an instant be sterilized out of existence.”

Again there was silence.  It was broken by the high trill of the telephone-bell.

“There is one of our bacilli squeaking for help,” said he with a grim smile.  “They are beginning to realize that their continued existence is not really one of the necessities of the universe.”