"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:--


"SCIENTIFIC POSSIBILITIES"

"Sir,--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 columns upon the subject of the blurring of Fraunhofer's
lines in the spectra both of the planets and of the fixed stars.
He dismisses the matter as of no significance. To a wider
intelligence it may well seem of very great possible
importance--so great as to involve the ultimate welfare of every
man, woman, and child upon this planet. I can hardly hope, by
the use of scientific language, to convey any sense of my
meaning to those ineffectual people who gather their ideas from
the columns of a daily newspaper. I will endeavour, therefore,
to condescend to their limitation and to indicate the situation