“Do you live here?” asked Bart, looking toward the lodge and seeking to turn the subject.
“Oh, no; I only come here to get strong. I had this hut built here for that purpose.”
“Yes; this is my property all around here. I have discovered the secret of becoming strong. Although I am now the strongest man in the world, I shall keep right on getting stronger. The time will come when I’ll be stronger than a hundred men combined.”
Now, Bart understood that there must be something the matter with the man’s mind, although he had little the appearance of a lunatic.
“I have let no one know why I come here to this place at a certain hour every day,” the stranger went on. “I knew they would laugh at me, and it makes me angry when any one laughs at me. Don’t laugh, young man! I am very disagreeable when I am angry.”
“It’s quiet and secluded,” nodded the man; “yet it is so near the house that I can easily hear them when they ring the bell for me. They think I come here to study medicine. Why, I completed the study of medicine long ago. I let them think that, however, for they would not understand if they knew what I was really studying. Any man who knows the secret may become strong if he is willing to shorten his life. You look surprised. I will explain. In order to acquire my present amount of strength, I have been compelled to boil down and concentrate the strength of several years into one year, and my life has been shortened just that much. But it is a glorious thing to know that I am the strongest man in the world. I am bound to become famous, and almost any man is willing to sacrifice a few years of life in order to win enduring fame. Perhaps you think my fame will not endure, but you are wrong. The fame of Samson has endured, and I shall become even stronger than Samson. I know the secret that Samson knew. It did not lay in his hair. What fools they were to think so! But I know the secret. It will take a little time for me to condense all the strength of years to come in one year, but I shall succeed, and then I’ll astound the world. With ease I’ll be able to pick up a horse and fling it over my head, as if it were light as a cat. I’ll have the power to topple over houses as if they were built of cards. I will----”