already a most noteworthy spectacle, one of the sights of the
city. Millions were being poured into it; new and beautiful buildings
were almost monthly erected. A brilliant, dynamic man had been called
from the East as president. There were still many things
needed--dormitories, laboratories of one kind and another, a great
library; and, last but not least, a giant telescope--one that would
sweep the heavens with a hitherto unparalleled receptive eye, and wring
from it secrets not previously decipherable by the eye and the mind of
man.

Cowperwood had always been interested in the heavens and in the giant
mathematical and physical methods of interpreting them. It so happened
that the war-like planet, with its sinister aspect, was just at this
time to be seen hanging in the west, a fiery red; and the easily
aroused public mind was being stirred to its shallow depth by
reflections and speculations regarding the famous canals of the
luminary. The mere thought of the possibility of a larger telescope
than any now in existence, which might throw additional light on this
evasive mystery, was exciting not only Chicago, but the whole world.
Late one afternoon Cowperwood, looking over some open fields which
faced his new power-house in West Madison Street, observed the planet
hanging low and lucent in the evening sky, a warm, radiant bit of
orange in a sea of silver. He paused and surveyed it. Was it true
that there were canals on it, and people? Life was surely strange.

One day not long after this Alexander Rambaud called him up on the
'phone and remarked, jocosely:

"I say, Cowperwood, I've played a rather shabby trick on you just now.
Doctor Hooper, of the University, was in here a few minutes ago asking
me to be one of ten to guarantee the cost of a telescope lens that he
thinks he needs to run that one-horse school of his out there. I told
him I thought you might possibly be interested. His idea is to find
some one who will guarantee forty thousand dollars, or eight or ten men
who will guarantee four or five thousand each. I thought of you,
because I've heard you discuss astronomy from time to time."

"Let him come," replied Cowperwood, who was never willing to be behind
others in generosity, particularly where his efforts were likely to be
appreciated in significant quarters.

Shortly afterward appeared the doctor himself--short, rotund, rubicund,
displaying behind a pair of clear, thick, gold-rimmed glasses