It is a fact that has often been observed that it is the weakest people who are the most concerned – in imagination – with physical exploits.

The doctor alone objected coldly:

“But the repetition of a vital act causes the death of the tissues, or their intoxication, which we call fatigue.”

“Repetition produces habit – and ability,” retorted Marcueil with equal gravity.

“Hurray! Training!” cried Arthur Gough.

“Mithridatism,” said the chemist.

“Exercise,” added the general.

“Present. . .arms! One, two, three!” quipped Henriette Cyne.

“Quite so, mademoiselle,” Marcueil concluded, “if you will only keep counting until you exhaust the infinite series of numbers.”

“Or, to be brief, of human capacities,” interjected Mrs. Arabella Gough with her charming lisp.

“Human capacities have no limits, madam,” asserted André Marcueil calmly.

All the smiles had vanished, despite this new opportunity the orator was affording for them. Such a theorem revealed that Marcueil was driving at something. But what? Everything about his appearance proclaimed that he was less capable than anyone of launching himself upon the perilous path of personal example.

But their expectations were disappointed. He let it go at that, as though peremptorily closing the discussion with a universal truth.

The doctor was irritated, and it was again he who broke the silence:

“Is what you mean to say that there are organs that work and rest almost simultaneously, and give the illusion of never stopping?. . .”

“The heart; let’s remain sentimental,” said William Elson.

“. . . until death,” concluded Bathybius.

“That is quite long enough to represent an infinite amount of work,” remarked Marcueil. “The number of diastoles and systoles in a human lifetime, or even in a single day, surpasses all imaginable figures.”

“But the heart is a very simple system of muscles,” the doctor corrected him.

“My motors stop sure enough when they run out of fuel,” said Arthur Gough.

“One might conceive,” ventured the chemist, “of a fuel for the human machine that could indefinitely delay muscular and nervous fatigue, repairing it as it is spent. I recently invented something of the sort. . .”

“What,” said the doctor, “your Perpetual Motion Food2 again? You are forever talking about it, and we never get to see any. I thought you were supposed to have sent some to our friend. . .”

“What was that?” asked Marcueil. “You forget, my friend, that one of my several infirmities is that I don’t understand English.”

“Perpetual Motion Food,” repeated the chemist.

“The name is intriguing,” said Bathybius. “What do you think of it, Marcueil?”

“You know I never take medicines. . . even though my best friend is a doctor,” Marcueil hastened to add, bowing slightly toward Bathybius.

“He’s making altogether too much of the fact that he knows nothing, doesn’t want to know anything, and is anemic, the dog,” muttered the doctor to himself.