II + 

For a week Martin’s life had all the regularity of an escaped soldier in the enemy’s country, with the same agitation and the same desire to prowl at night. He was always sterilizing flasks, preparing media of various hydrogen-ion concentrations, copying his old notes into a new book lovingly labeled “X Principle, Staph,” and adding to it further observations. He tried, elaborately, with many flasks and many reseedings, to determine whether the X Principle would perpetuate itself indefinitely, whether when it was transmitted from tube to new tube of bacteria it would reappear, whether, growing by cell-division automatically, it was veritably a germ, a sub-germ infecting germs. + 

During the week Gottlieb occasionally peered over his shoulder, but Martin was unwilling to report until he should have proof, and one good night’s sleep, and perhaps even a shave. + 

When he was sure that the X Principle did reproduce itself indefinitely, so that in the tenth tube it grew to have as much effect as in the first, then he solemnly called on Gottlieb and laid before him his results, with his plans for further investigation. + 

The old man tapped his thin fingers on the report, read it intently, looked up and, not wasting time in congratulations, vomited questions: + 

Have you done dis? Why have you not done dat? At what temperature is the activity of the Principle at its maximum? Is its activity manifested on agar-solid medium? + 

“This is my plan for new work. I think you’ll find it includes most of your suggestions.” + 

“Huh!” Gottlieb ran through it and snorted, “Why have you not planned to propagate it on dead staph? That is most important of all.” + 

“Why?” + 

Gottlieb flew instantly to the heart of the jungle in which Martin had struggled for many days: “Because that will show whether you are dealing with a living virus.” + 

Martin was humbled, but Gottlieb beamed: + 

“You haf a big thing. Now do not let the Director know about this and get enthusiastic too soon. I am glad, Martin!” + 

There was that in his voice which sent Martin swanking down the corridor, back to work⁠—and to not sleeping. + 

What the X Principle was⁠—chemical or germ⁠—he could not determine, but certainly the original Principle flourished. It could be transmitted indefinitely; he determined the best temperature for it and found that it did not propagate on dead staphylococcus. When he added a drop containing the Principle to a growth of staphylococcus which was a gray film on the solid surface of agar, the drop was beautifully outlined by bare patches, as the enemy made its attack, so that the agar slant looked like moth-eaten beeswax. But within a fortnight one of the knots of which Gottlieb warned him appeared. + 

Wary of the hundreds of bacteriologists who would rise to slay him once his paper appeared, he sought to make sure that his results could be confirmed. At the hospital he obtained pus from many boils, of the arms, the legs, the back; he sought to reduplicate his results⁠—and failed, complete. No X Principle appeared in any of the new boils, and sadly he went to Gottlieb. + 

The old man meditated, asked a question or two, sat hunched in his cushioned chair, and demanded: + 

“What kind of a carbuncle was the original one?” + 

“Gluteal.” + 

“Ah, den the X Principle may be present in the intestinal contents. Look for it, in people with boils and without.” + 

Martin dashed off. In a week he had obtained the Principle from intestinal contents and from other gluteal boils, finding an especial amount in boils which were “healing of themselves”; and he transplanted his new Principle, in a heaven of triumph, of admiration for Gottlieb. He extended his investigation to the intestinal group of organisms and discovered an X Principle against the colon bacillus. At the same time he gave some of the original Principle to a doctor in the Lower Manhattan Hospital for the treatment of boils, and from him had excited reports of cures, more excited inquiries as to what this mystery might be. + 

With these new victories he went parading in to Gottlieb, and suddenly he was being trounced: + 

“Oh! So! Beautiful! You let a doctor try it before you finished your research? You want fake reports of cures to get into the newspapers, to be telegraphed about places, and have everybody in the world that has a pimple come tumbling in to be cured, so you will never be able to work? You want to be a miracle man, and not a scientist? You do not want to complete things? You wander off monkey-skipping and flap-doodling with colon bacillus before you have finish with staph⁠—before you haf really begun your work⁠—before you have found what is the nature of the X Principle? Get out of my office! You are a⁠—a⁠—a college president! Next I know you will be dining with Tubbs, and get your picture in the papers for a smart cure-vendor!” + 

Martin crept out, and when he met Billy Smith in the corridor and the little chemist twittered, “Up to something big? Haven’t seen you lately,” Martin answered in the tone of Doc Vickerson’s assistant in Elk Mills: + 

“Oh⁠—no⁠—gee⁠—I’m just grubbing along, I guess.” + 