d me--the sort of man I
am, the sort of thing I do--you'd not need me, but would be the whole
show yourself--eh? That being true, don't show yourself a commonplace
nobody by deriding and denying what your brain is unable to comprehend.
Show yourself a somebody by seeing the limitations of your ability. The
world is full of little people who criticise and judge and laugh at and
misunderstand the few real intelligences. And very tedious interruptions
of the scenery those little people are. Don't be one of them. . . . Did
you know my wife's father?"

Tetlow startled. "No--that is, yes," he stammered. "That is, I met him a
few times."

"Often enough to find out that he was crazy?"

"Oh, yes. He explained some of his ideas to me. Yes--he was quite mad,
poor fellow."

Norman gave way to a fit of silent laughter. "I can imagine," he
presently said, "what you'd have thought if Columbus or Alexander or
Napoleon or Stevenson or even the chaps who doped out the telephone and
the telegraph--if they had talked to you before they arrived. Or even
after they arrived, if they had been explaining some still newer and
bigger idea not yet accomplished."

"You don't think Mr. Hallowell was mad?"

"He was mad, assuming that you are the standard of sanity. Otherwise, he
was a great man. There'll be statues erected and pages of the book of
fame devoted to the men who carry out his ideas."

"His death was certainly a great loss to his daughter," said Tetlow in
his heaviest, most bourgeois manner.

"I said he was a great man," observed Norman. "I didn't say he was a
great father. A great man is never a great father. It takes a small man
to be a great father."

"At any rate, her having no parents or relatives doesn't matter, now
that she has you," said Tetlow, his manner at once forced and
constrained.

"Um," muttered Norman.

Said Tetlow: "Perhaps you misunderstood why I--I acted as I did about
her, toward the last."

"It was of no importance," said Norman brusquely. "I wish to hear
nothing about it."

"But I must explain, Fred. She piqued me by showing so plainly that she
despised me. I must admit the truth, though I've got as much vanity as
the next man, and don't like to admit it. She despised me, and it made
me mad."

An expression of grim satire passed over Norman's face. Said he: "She
despised me, too."

"Yes, she did," said Tetlow. "And both of us were certainly greatly her
superiors--in every substantial way. It se