HE CAME PREPARED,

Observer, Volume 9, Issue 524, 5 January 1889, Page 11

HE CAME PREPARED,

' You don't know what love is, Mr Swackhamrner,' protested the beautiful girl, with a smile of incredulity on her face; 'the sentiment you entertain for me is only a passing fancy. When it has had its brief day and you look at it in the cold light of reason you will be surprised that you ever mistook so palpable a delusion for the genuine thing it appears to represent.' ' but hear me, Miss Garlinghouse,' claimed the young man, calmly yet earnestly, ' am I not old enough to know my own—' • It is not a question of age-, Mr^wackhammer,' interposed Miss Garlinghouse, still smiling incredulously, 'but of scientific demonstration. As you are probably aware, I have devoted myself for the last two or three year<3 to a severe course of scientific study, and I have acquired the habit, perhaps unconsciously, of accepting nothing as true that is not demonstrable by the inexorable rules of mathematics or the soundest process of logical induction. Science has become with me the touchstone of all things asserted, claimed or proposed, and—' • But how do you apply the rules of science to matters of the heart ?' inquired the young man. ' How can you subject my love to the test of a mathematical or scientific demonstration ?' 'In this way, Mr Swackhammer : The action of the passion or emotion of love upon the various sympathetic ganglia of the human organism causes certain well-established and clearly defined phenomena. When you speak to me of love I look for the appearance of those phenomena. From a scientifij point of view they are not satisfactory. The tremor of your voice is not sufficiently pronounced. Your articulation is not thick and husky. The colour in your face is hardly a shade paler than its normal hue, and you have no nervous movements of the hands. Do you think a mere assertion can disprove the evidence — ' ' Alvira Garlinghouse,' came impetuously from the lips of the young man, as he rose to his feet, ' there are facts in mental as well as physical science that are not wholly beneath your notice. Some men are gifted with a marvellous faculty of self-control, so far as external manifestations are concerned. Beneath the apparently unmoved exterior that you have subjected to a scientific test there rages a volcano of passion. Do you doubt it ? I will demonstrate it to a mathematical certainty. I foresaw the sceptioism with which you would receive my avowal, and came prepared. Listen to the beating of my heart.' And with a quick movement he drew from beneath his waistcoat the flexible tube of a stethescope and placed it against her ear. ' Count the pulsations I 1 he continued. ' They will run nearly 100 to the minute. Normal heart-beat 70 pulsations. Note the revelation of deathless love conveyed by this respirometer !' And he produced another flexible tube. ' Respirations per minute, 28 ! Twenty-eight, Alvira —count them— 2B! Normal respirations per minute, from 14 to 20 in adults. Observe the mathematical certainty of the tempeustous passion demonstrated by my temperature I' And opening his tightly. closed left hand, he showed he.x a small thermometer. Temperature, Alvira, 112 I Normal temperature, about 100 Fahrenheit! Have I proved my love ?' • Alpheus,' murmured the lovely girl, as sb.9 placed her head on his shoulder, with her lipg at an accessible angle, ' you have.'