66

"A

I

S the matter stands," said the young man, resting both elbows on the table and looking across at the young woman, "my father's son has no chance, because his paternal ancestor is a blithering, impractical, warm-hearted, careless, good-natured old idiot with the best disposition in the world, but with no inclination to do anything which could be of the slightest use to himself, no matter how much use it might be to other people."

They had the restaurant practically to themselves. Even the waiter, having come early into possession of his fee and having removed the dishes, had removed himself. Their corner was deserted.

"You shouldn't speak of your father that way," said the young woman, sharply.

"I am quoting." replied the young man. "I added 'warm-hearted' and 'good-natured' to the quotation, although I understand they are conceded by the signatory powers.

"Signatory powers?" inquired the girl.

"Represented in this case by your father, your mother, and yourself."

"You know very well, Dick," said the girl, "that no one in the world has more admiration for your father than I have."

"Admiration, yes, lang it! But, Mary, you fear that his son has inherited hiswell, call it impractical-disposition, and for that reason you will not trust yourself to him, and your parents would not allow you to if you were willing."

He drew out a case, asked permission with a look, and lighted a cigarette. The girl in her turn leaned forward on the table and spoke earnestly.

"I am not afraid of his father's son," she said. "I believe in him. It is because of this that I want him to do something. My father is violently prejudiced. Now, Dick, is he all wrong if he cares at all what becomes of us? Dick, have you ever given any thought to responsibility? Don't you think you ought to show that you can do something before we risk ourselves? I am not afraid that I shall have to take in washing. I am thinking more of you than I am of myself. I should not like to go against my

father's wishes, but I would do so if I did not think he was right, and if I did not think thaf, you could make good' if you had to."

"And all this suspicion," said the young man, leaning back in his chair, "is because my good-natured paternal ancestor prefers to invent airships just now rather than washing machines, or new burglar-catches on windows, or something useful like that."

"No, it is not," said the girl. "My father thinks that way, and so does my mother; but I think your father has a perfect right to invent airships or submarines or wireless telephones or anything he likes. I do not think, though, that his son should think that this gives him the privilege of leading an irresponsible life. If you want such a life, you should not seek responsibilities, and I'll be a responsibility."

"I guess your father's right," he said, wearily. "It's in the blood. Father's work has made him rich three times, and he has lost it. He never cared when he did. He is just as happy now as he was when his factories covered forty acres."

"But, Dick, I know you better than you 'know yourself. You wouldn't be. You want the good things of life. You want the praise of people. You needn't deny it. When people say that you are such a brilliant boy, and could do so much if you tried, you like it."

"I don't try, because if I did I would fail, and then they would see that they were wrong," he said flippantly.

"You have tried-half-heartedly," she answered, “and always something useless."

"What was useless?" he asked, bristling somewhat.

"What was the last thing?" she asked in return. "A device to warn that a window was open and the rain coming in!"

"Well, burglar-catches are useful," he retorted, "and rain can do as much damage as a burglar-at least as much as some burglars, as much as a kind-hearted burglar, if it's a bad rain."

"Don't be flippant," she warned him, "or I shan't talk to you any more about this subject."

He was silent for a while, and she sat

watching him as he picked at the corners of the table-cloth, moodily.

"What do you want me to do?" he asked finally.

"Show that I am not mistaken in you," she replied, slowly, "I don't like to think that I have come to care for a man who does not want to make it possible for me to marry him.”

"Sometimes I believe you do care in spite of your opinion of me," he said. "Does it flatter you that the caring should have to be 'in spite' of something?" she asked. "I believe it does." He laughed, and shifted a bit in his

chair.

"You have an uncomfortable way of hitting a fellow off just right at times," he admitted. "I do like to feel that you can care, in spite of my indisposition to perform wonderful and useful feats."

Again they sat silently for a few minutes, and then he raised his head with something like an inspiration showing in his eyes.

"I believe I have just hit on something," he said.

"Don't tell me what it is," she said, breaking in on him suddenly. "Show it to me after it's finished. I am afraid of these inspirations which get talked out and not worked out."

She added this with a half-laugh, and then went on quickly:

"You will have an opportunity in the next month to work it out without talking-at least to me. ing at least to me. I am going away for a while-to Europe."

A look of surprise and grief came into his face.

"Why didn't you tell me?" he demanded.

"I am telling you," she replied.
"But before this.'

"It has just been decided. I leave in two days with my aunt. I came with you to-day to tell you and to have this talk with you."

"I don't want you to go," he cried.

"O, yes, you do, Dickie," she said. "You wouldn't have me miss it, and it will give you the chance to do something without being bothered by me. Take my advice, Dick. Go back to the farm. Get to work with your father in his workshop. Do something. Now you must take me to the stores. I have worlds

of things to do. See how much I think of you to give you all this valuable time."

II

With the somewhat unusual sensation of having a resolution firmly in his grasp, young Richard Plalonden carried it tenderly and hurriedly home, where he could be sure that it would not be lost because of his attention to other subjects. He felt more sure of himself than he ever had before, largely because something that he really wanted seemed to be dependent on his success in carrying out his determination.

Moreover, the girl had stirred up in him some vague misgivings and a certain feeling that she was right and he entirely wrong.

Wallace Plalonden, the father whose impractical nature the boy was supposed to have inherited to his detriment if not to his lasting injury, held, as the last of a once-extensive property, a small farm, where he lived in apparent contentment with his illusions, ambitions, and dreams. His past achievements gave him clear title to the name of genius. His present life showed him clearly indifferent to it. When harvesting machinery was crude, his inventions had brought it up to a high state of efficiency close to perfection. When his inventive mind was working to its best purpose, forty acres of factories sprang up around him to carry out the designs which he brought into being.

They were his, but he did not care for them. The experiment room took all of him. The office got none. There came a crash. His forty acres of factories passed from him, and were split up into a dozen different firms. His patents went to cover obligations. Still the man was as serene as if he never had known the possession of wealth.

Three times he had built up large enterprises, and had secured riches for himself; and each time, he saw them disappear and leave him close to absolute poverty.

As he grew older, his ideas became more visionary and less practical. There had been one thing about his earlier visions. They all had resulted to the practical benefit of someone, if not himself. Now he was giving the best that was in him to the design of an aeroplane, and

it occupied his thoughts to the exclusion of every other project.

Horace Truesdale, father of the girl with whom young Plalonden had his talk in the restaurant, had been associated with the elder Plalonden in the harvester factories. With him he had lost everything in the crash. Slowly and with infinite pains he had dragged himself to his feet again, and, being unlike the more talented man, he watched and kept what he gained a second time.

His prejudice against his old associate in business amounted to an obsession. He could not think of him or speak of him rationally. It was his daughter with whom young Plalonden had chosen to fall in love.

On reaching the farm, Dick found his father in his workshop, cheerfully whistling as he tightened nuts on a light steel shaft carrying a propeller. Money badly needed for his own necessities and comforts had paid for the casting.

"Well, Dick," said the father, as his son came in, "back again!"

"They say at the house that you haven't had any dinner," said his son.

"Haven't I?" exclaimed the father, running a hand abstractedly through his hair. "Why, I'm sure I have. They must be mistaken."

"I'll bet they are not mistaken, and I'll bet they have been trying to get you to the table for the last two hours," said the son, sitting down on the edge of a box. "Supper will be ready in an hour. I'll see that you get in to that. Your old friend Truesdale has a brand new thing. Hear about it?"

"Has he? He always had ability in a limited way, but he lacked breadth. What is it?"

"Gasoline motor," said the young man, crossing his legs. "Say, father, what did you ever do with that combination harvester you started and abandoned? Junk pile?"

"I

"I think so," said the elder man. haven't given it a thought for a couple of years.

"

"Could it be worked out?"

"Possibly. I didn't give it up because

I was stalled, but because I lost interest. Why do you want to know?"

"Give it to me, will you? I want to put it through."

"Go ahead, Dick. Take it. I have often wished that you'd get down to something practical. I was afraid you would get into your father's habits, which are good enough for an old man who has no one but himself to please, but bad for a young man with the world to satisfy. What are you going to do with it?"

"Work it out," said the young man, determinedly and slowly. "I propose to make it run. I propose to make money. I propose to get married."

"Good luck to you, Dick," said the elder man. "I propose to make this aeroplane do some flying on new principles, but I don't know whether it will or not. You have the advantage of youth, and know that you will do what you propose to do."

A light burned in young Plalonden's room until far into the night, while he studied the designs of the combination harvester which he had with great trouble dug out of his father's stacked-up effects.

The next day found him scraping the dust and dirt and rust off the abandoned model; and from that on, the women of the Plalonden household had their domestic anxieties increased two-fold. The son was as hard to adjust to the family schedule of meals and sleeping hours as his father had ever been.

For a month the young man worked feverishly and enthusiastically, and for another month feverishly and enthusiastically at times but dejectedly at others. Three letters came to him from Miss Truesdale-one from London, one from Paris, and one from Naples. Each produced a week of redoubled effort on his part, followed by a reaction during which he deserted his workshop for long country walks.

The elder Plalonden nursed his aëroplane with the pride of an artist and the care of a dentist. It was during one of the son's moody spells toward the end of the second month, that a brisk and apparently busy visitor came to see the elder, and found him in his workshop.

"My name is Wilson," he said, introducing himself. "I'm in the circus business. I have heard that you have an airship that will work, and that it is about completed. What will you take for it?"

"Nothing," said Plalonden, promptly. "Say $10,000 if it's ready soon and will work," suggested Wilson, smiling.

"You have made a fair offer, and I suppose you are entitled to a fair answer. I won't sell because the aëroplane as it stands now is no good. It will operate, but so will a dozen others which have been made. If it can't be made to operate usefully and commercially, I have no interest in it. It will do that the way it stands. It might serve your purpose. It probably would. You could use it for exhibition purposes, but I have no interest in invention for that purpose."

"That's your final decision?" Wilson asked, looking at the inventor sharply. "Final," said Planonden.

"I'll leave my card anyway," the circus man said, as he turned to go. "I can't say that the offer remains open indefinitely; but still, if you change your mind, let me know."

An hour after his departure, Dick came into his father's shop and sat down moodily on the edge of a box. "What's the matter, Dick?" the elder Plalonden asked.

"I'm discouraged." "Any reason?" "Plenty."

His father looked at him inquiringly, and the young man let it out in a burst of words.

"Miss Truesdale will be home in six weeks. I have been stalled on what ought to be a simple part of the machine. I might get it; but suppose I do. Where shall we find money to have it cast? What's the use?"

His father looked at him a moment apprehensively, and then said, kindly:

"Go away for a while, Dick. If you stick too close to a thing, lots of little things get to look like big ones. Go away for a couple of weeks, and then come back to it. You will find you can make it all right then."

"I'm going away to-night. But suppose I can get over the trouble—it's only a matter of shifting levers-how does that help us? It will not make us any richer."

That night, after his son, with his baggage, had made a moody departure from the house, the elder Plalonden took a