he bare high walls.

"Tie the rudder down at one side," suggested Brown. "Now it is ready.
Press the connection and off she goes!"

Pericord leaned forward, his long sallow face quivering with excitement.
His white nervous hands darted here and there among the wires. Brown
stood impassive with critical eyes. There was a sharp burr from the
machine. The huge yellow wings gave a convulsive flap. Then another.
Then a third, slower and stronger, with a fuller sweep. Then a fourth
which filled the barn with a blast of driven air. At the fifth the bag
of bricks began to dance upon the trestles. At the sixth it sprang into
the air, and would have fallen to the ground, but the seventh came to
save it, and fluttered it forward through the air. Slowly rising, it
flapped heavily round in a circle, like some great clumsy bird, filling
the barn with its buzzing and whirring. In the uncertain yellow light
of the single lamp it was strange to see the loom of the ungainly thing,
flapping off into the shadows, and then circling back into the narrow
zone of light.

The two men stood for a while in silence. Then Pericord threw his long
arms up into the air.

"It acts!" he cried. "The Brown-Pericord Motor acts!" He danced about
like a madman in his delight. Brown's eyes twinkled, and he began to
whistle.

"See how smoothly it goes, Brown!" cried the inventor. "And the
rudder--how well it acts! We must register it tomorrow."

His comrade's face darkened and set. "It _is_ registered," he said, with
a forced laugh.

"Registered?" said Pericord. "Registered?" He repeated the word first in
a whisper, and then in a kind of scream. "Who has dared to register my
invention?"

"I did it this morning. There is nothing to be excited about. It is all
right."

"You registered the motor! Under whose name?"

"Under my own," said Brown, sullenly. "I consider that I have the best
right to it."

"And my name does not appear?"

"No, but--"

"You villain!" screamed Pericord. "You thief and villain! You would
steal my work! You would filch my credit! I will have that patent back
if I have to tear your throat out!" A sombre fire burned in his black
eyes, and his hands writhed themselves together with passion. Brown was
no coward, but he shrank back as the other advanced upon him.

"Keep your hands off!" he said, drawing a knife from his pocket. "I will
defend myself if you attack me."

"You threaten me?" cried Pericord, whose face was livid