aid gently, "Why do you hesitate about accepting
your father's offer?"

"I don't wish to be under any obligations to him."

"But he makes you a purely business proposition. Can't you trust him to
handle it?"

"Oh, I suppose so, I never knew of his being dishonest. And you know the
old proverb: 'Wer lugt, der stiehlt auch'; 'show me a liar and I'll show
you a thief.' His faults were always of a different sort. But you can
see how I would naturally hesitate to correspond with him or have any
dealings with him."

"I think you are wrong about that," said Walter positively. "This is a
purely business affair. You ought to treat it as such. He can handle the
matter for you, being on the ground, far better than you can do it
through correspondence at this distance."

"Do you think so?"

"I know it. If I were in your place I wouldn't hesitate a minute. You
are totally at the mercy of the manufacturers unless you can make them
understand your ability to take care of yourself. Isn't it true that the
great majority of inventors die poor? The manufacturers make the money,
not the inventors."

"That's true. But I don't want to die poor. I won't die poor. I have not
the ambition of a Carnegie or a Rockefeller."

"You need a good friend at Washington to protect your interests. My!
Won't it be great if your incubator should make you rich! I don't know
why it shouldn't. The way the chickens hatched out of it was wonderful.
Just think, old man. Most everyone nowadays has electricity in his
house. Thousands of people could just as well as not be raising chickens
on the side. Ministers, doctors, college professors, newspaper men,
lawyers, school teachers,--no end. The sun would never set on your
incubator any more than hens have to. I tell you, old man, there's money
in your electric birds if you manage the business end of this thing
right. And I don't see why your father's offer isn't just--well,
providential."

"I never knew anything about him to be 'providential,'" said Bauer in
almost the only bitter tone Walter had ever known him to use. "But I
don't want to take any chances on this. Perhaps he is sent along at this
time to help me out."

Walter looked curiously at his friend.

"You seem to be awfully anxious to make money, Felix. Never knew you
that way before. What you going to do? Get married? And start a chicken
ranch?"

Over Bauer's face a great flood of colour swept. There was one
confidence he had determined nev