lamp into the workshop, and went over the young man's designs carefully.

"He has it nearly done," he said to himself, as he examined the model. "Here's where he was stuck on the levers."

Next morning the old man went again to the shop and turned to his aëroplane. He did not resume work on it. He merely took a chamois skin, and rubbed its shafts and polished steel. Then he sat for a long time and looked at it. He walked around it, and studied it reflectively.

Finally, he fell into a profound and abstracted contemplation of a cobwebbed corner of the shop and was motionless for an hour. When he aroused himself, he went slowly and seemingly in sadness to his table and wrote three letters.

One was to Wilson, the show man. The second was to one of several capitalists in New York who had reason to know that when Plalonden pledged his word to an invention that invention was right. The third was to the firm which made his castings.

Dick came home at the end of two weeks, refreshed and more hopeful, and fell to work again on his design. His father watched him curiously, but offered no advice. At the end of a week the young man announced that the levers which had bothered him were found.

"The discouraging part about it was that they were the simplest parts of the whole thing," he said, laughing.

A day afterwards he was surprised to find his father taking the aëroplane to pieces; and the following day more so when a dray drove up to the farm and his father superintended the removal of the airship.

"What's this all about, dad?" he asked. "We're just taking it away to give it a trial," said the elder inventor, shortly. In another week he had finished his model, and had made an important alteration to the original. He explained this to his father enthusiastically, and the latter listened to the explanation with a puzzled and not altogether overjoyed expression on his face, although he agreed that the alteration was a decided improvement. The next day that part of the model had disappeared mysteriously; and Dick, grumbling over the careless misplacing of it, was not able to get much satisfaction out of his father.

He replaced it with another, and then, with his invention completed, he fell into moodiness again. There was no money for the casting, and none to be had.

In spite of his own disturbed state of mind, he could not help observing the behavior of his father, who walked nervously about in the shop from which the aeroplane had been taken, for all the world like a hen which has been deprived of its chickens.

Dick attempted to question him as to the fate of the machine, but could get no satisfaction.

The two made a curious pair in the succeeding days-the young man the prisoner of his hopelessness, and the old man the victim of his abstract sorrow. Then came a letter from Miss Truesdale. She had landed in New York, and would be at home in twenty-four hours.

"Of course you'll see her, Dick," said the father.

"No," said the young man, shaking his head. "She said she wanted to see results and not to hear promises. I have no results to show."

In consequence of this, the elder Plalonden wrote another letter. In three davs he handed the answer to his son.

"She will be here to-morrow morning,' he said. "Now, you will have to meet her at the station and drive her out."

"You get ahead of me every time, don't you, dad," exclaimed the young man, laying his hand on his father's shoulders. His face had brightened up, and he smiled as if supremely happy to be defeated in his resolution.

He met her the next day as she stepped from the train.

"Why did I have to come to you?" she asked, as they drove along the country road.

"Because I have failed," he said simply.

She turned away her head for a moment, but presently looked at him, smiling a bit soberly.

"There still is time," she said; but Plalonden shook his head.

"You make me feel as if I were turning against you because you think you have failed," cried the girl impulsively. "I am not. I refuse to be convinced that you will not show your worth. I am almost tempted to be a weak character

and say that I don't care whether you do or not."

She turned away her head again for a moment; but he did not answer, and they drove into the home driveway in silence. Suddenly they were aware of a clicking metallic sound from a field hidden by a clump of trees. This stopped, and there was a moment's silence, followed by a cheery hail:

"O, Dick, come here!"

The young man helped the girl to alight, and led her toward the field. It was of corn, with wheat full-ripened in the adjoining one. A section of the dividing fence was down; and Dick's father, seated on a new harvester, was driving from the wheat to the corn. Dick stood as if held to the ground; and the girl, more mystified and equally motionless, stood by his side.

Throwing a lever, the elder Plalonden took off an edge of the green standing corn, and the bundles were thrown out at the side. Shifting the levers at his side. again, he turned into the weeds; and they, like the corn, were mowed down. Without leaving his seat, and with merely a change of levers, he drove again into the wheat, and the bundles of grain were tossed out. Then he gave a cheer and sprang down, running to the girl with outstretched hands.

"There's Dick's failure!" he said. "I know he told you it was a failure. There it is!"

"Father!" was the only word the young man had at his command, and that was tremulous.

"Don't stand here," said the old inventor, bustling them along. "There's

better news than this. Come to the house and I'll show you a letter."

Almost at a full run he rushed them to the house. Then he bolted within, and in a second was bolting out, quite as precipitately, waving a letter triumphantly in his hand.

"Here's the promise of all the capital you need," he shouted. "O, yes, Dick's quite a failure!"

At that moment a bell was heard ringing in the roadway. They turned in the direction of the sound, and saw a wagon carrying an enormous canvas sign approaching, its coming heralded by the monotonous beating of a gong. As they looked, it came abreast as they read:

WILSON BROTHERS GREAT

UNITED CIRCUS

UNPARALLELED ATTRACTION PROFESSOR PLALONDEN'S

AËROPLANE

TWO ASCENSIONS DAILY

There was more of it, but that was sufficient; and as the moving canvas signboard which was advertising the circus along the country roads passed on, Dick turned to his father, and put a hand on his shoulder.

"Father!" he exclaimed. "Did you even do that?"

The elder Plalonden had unconsciously twisted his face into a wry grimace as he saw the sign, but he took the girl's hand in his right and the young man's in his left.

"Shucks," he said, a little brokenly. "This is worth more than that costs."