speaks of the exalted genius whose cure for tuberculosis has
failed, or of the man who found the North Pole by advertising in the
newspapers, or of the books of Henry James. He was a person to steer clear
of, that was all.

Every newspaper in the country discussed him editorially, paragraphically,
and as an article of news. For weeks after the death of Templeton Thorpe
and the publication of his will, not a day passed in which Braden Thorpe's
outlandish assault upon civilisation failed to receive its country-wide
attention in the press. And when editorial writers, medical sharps, legal
experts and grateful reporters failed to avail themselves of the full
measure of space set apart for their gluttony, ubiquitous "Constant
Reader" rushed into print under many aliases and enjoyed himself as never
before.

In the face of all this uproar, brought about by the posthumous utterance
of old Templeton Thorpe, Braden had the courage,--or the temerity, if that
is a truer word,--to put his name in a window and invite further attention
to himself.

The world, without going into the matter any deeper than it usually does,
assumed that he who entered the office of Dr. Thorpe would never come out
of it alive!

The fact that Thorpe advocated something that could not conceivably become
a reality short of two centuries made no impression on the world and his
family. Dr. Thorpe believed that it was best to put sufferers out of their
misery, and that was all there was to be said about the matter so far as
Mr. Citizen was concerned.

It would appear, therefore, that all of Templeton Thorpe's ideas, hopes
and plans concerning the future of his grandson were to be shattered by
his own lack of judgment and foresight. Without intending to do so he had
deprived the young man of all that had been given him in the way of
education, training and character. Young Thorpe might have lived down or
surmounted the prejudice that his own revolutionary utterances created,
but he could never overcome the stupendous obstacle that now lay in his
path.

If Mr. Thorpe had hoped to create, or believed sincerely that it was
possible to create, a force capable of overpowering the natural instincts
of man, he had set for himself a task that could have but one result so
far as the present was concerned, and it was in the present that Braden
Thorpe lived, very far removed from the future that Mr. Thorpe appeared to
be seeing from a point close by as he lay on hi