en it."

Somehow the absence of a tie seemed to ease the passage of the simple
fare down his gullet and Richard felt twice his own man as he turned
jubilantly into the park and swung along the lower walk. The breakfast
had heartened him and he was ready to face the future with a bold front.

"I'll take a bit of a constitutional," he said, "and later on roll round
to a labour bureau and see what's doing."

He paused for a moment by the rails of Rotten Row and watched some early
horsemen canter by. In one of them he recognised an old acquaintance and
instinctively covered the lower half of his face with his hand. His chin
felt prickly to the touch for his beard had grown rapidly during the
night. As a scrupulous twice-a-day shaver his senses rebelled at the
notion of weed upon his face. However, it was useless to lament over
trifles like that.

"I know," he said to himself. "A dip in the Serpentine."

A quarter of an hour later he was cutting through the water with long
powerful strokes. On returning to the shore he had the good fortune to
borrow a cake of soap from another bather who appeared, from the modesty
of his folded garments, to be in equally hazardous financial
circumstances.

"To tell the honest truth," his new acquaintance confided, "I bagged that
bit of soap from a Great Eastern Railway carriage. Managed to nip in and
collar it when no one was looking. Suppose I'm a thief of sorts but a
man loses self respect if he doesn't wash."

They sat side by side until the pale sunlight had partially dried them.

"You broke?" Richard queried.

The man shook his head seriously.

"No, I'm a millionaire," he replied, "only I haven't any money--not a
bean. Spent it all making myself rich. Look at this."

He untied a string that circled his neck. (Richard had noticed the
string and a small linen bag it supported.) He opened the bag and
produced a piece of yellow metal about the size of a lump of sugar.

"It's gold," he said.

Richard agreed that it looked like gold and asked where he found it.

"I made it," came the astonishing reply. "You needn't worry, it is gold
all right. Bear any test." He restored it to the bag. "Seems stupid,"
he went on, "that here am I, with the knowledge to command millions, and
I haven't a sou in my pocket. Cheap process, too, once you've got the
plant. Dirt cheap. 'Course it's getting the plant's the trouble. No
one'll believe me. Disheartening. Took that sa