dies alone for a time,' we shall say. 'Take our food and improve your
moral system.' We shall become the crusaders of commerce. Your story
will be told in every quarter of the globe, it will be translated into
every conceivable tongue. Your picture will very likely adorn the lid
of our boxes. It will be a matter for consideration, indeed, whether we
shall not name this great discovery after you."

"So it was for this," Burton exclaimed, "that you offered me that
thousand pounds!"

"We were to blame," Mr. Bomford admitted.

"Very much to blame," the professor echoed.

"Nevertheless," Mr. Bomford insisted, "it is an incident which you must
forget. It is man's first impulse, is it not, to make the best bargain
he can for himself? We tried it and failed. For the future we abandon
all ideas of that sort, Mr. Burton. We associate you, both nominally
and in effect, with our enterprise, in which we will be equal partners.
The professor will find the capital, I will find the commercial
experience, you shall hand over the bean. I promise you that before
five years have gone by, you shall be possessed of wealth beyond any
dreams you may ever have conceived."

Burton moved uneasily in his chair.

"But I have never conceived any dreams of wealth at all," he objected.
"I have no desire whatever to be rich. Wealth seems to me to be only an
additional excitement to vulgarity. Besides, the possession of wealth
in itself tends to an unnatural state of existence. Man is happy only
if he earns the money which buys for him the necessaries of life."

Mr. Bomford listened as one listens to a lunatic. Mr. Cowper,
however, nodded his head in kindly toleration.

"Thoughts like that," he admitted, "have come to me, my young friend, in
the seclusion of my study. They have come, perhaps, in the inspired
moments, but in the inspired moments one is not living that every-day
and necessary life which is forced upon us by the conditions of
existence in this planet. There is nothing in the whole scheme of life
so great as money. With it you can buy the means of gratifying every
one of those unnatural desires with which Fate has endowed us. Take my
case, for instance. If this wealth comes to me, I shall spend no more
upon what I eat or drink or wear, yet, on the other hand, I shall
gratify one of the dreams of my life. I shall start for the East with a
search party, equipped with every modern invention which the mind of man
has conceived. I shall