rooms in the evening. Mrs. Winnie was
in despair because he would not come and learn bridge, and Mrs. Vivie
Patton sought him in vain for a week-end party. He could not exactly
say that while the others slept he was toiling upward in the night, for
the others did not sleep in the night; but he could say that while they
were feasting and dancing, he was delving into insurance law. Oliver
argued in vain to make him realize that he could not live for ever upon
one client; and that it was as important for a lawyer to be a social
light as to win his first big case. Montague was so absorbed that he
even failed to be thrilled when one morning he opened an invitation
envelope, and read the fateful legend: "Mrs. Devon requests the honour
of your company"--telling him that he had "passed" on that critical
examination morning, and that he was definitely and irrevocably in
Society!

CHAPTER XII

Montague was now a capitalist, and therefore a keeper of the gates of
opportunity. It seemed as though the seekers for admission must have
had some occult way of finding it out; almost immediately they began to
lay siege to him.

About a week after his cheque arrived, Major Thorne, whom he had met
the first evening at the Loyal Legion, called him up and asked to see
him; and he came to Montague's room that evening, and after chatting
awhile about old times, proceeded to unfold a business proposition. It
seemed that the Major had a grandson, a young mechanical engineer, who
had been labouring for a couple of years at a very important invention,
a device for loading coal upon steamships and weighing it automatically
in the process. It was a very complicated problem, needless to say, but
it had been solved successfully, and patents had been applied for, and
a working model constructed. But it had proved unexpectedly difficult
to interest the officials of the great steamship companies in the
device. There was no doubt about the practicability of the machine, or
the economies it would effect; but the officials raised trivial
objections, and caused delays, and offered prices that were
ridiculously inadequate. So the young inventor had conceived the idea
of organizing a company to manufacture the machines, and rent them upon
a royalty. "I didn't know whether you would have any money," said Major
Thorne, "--but I thought you might be in touch with others who could be
got to look into the matter. There is a fortune in it for those who
ta