ge's
Byrdsvillianism mixed up in the affair. I stole your secret that had
been stolen, left for a Pennsylvania furnace the next morning, had
experimental furnaces built, tried out the experiments before the
company, keeping dust in Rogers's eyes by demanding to be in on his
robbery, patented it by push-legislation in Washington, and am back
with an offer of fifty thousand dollars down and a royalty to be
decided upon in a ten-year contract. I have a great mind to put it in
trust for you, idiotic dreamer that you are--and perhaps the most
noted man in the field of commercial invention for this year at any
rate! How did you come to think out that process of a disturbance of
atomic arrangement at that temperature?"

"Why, you see, Mr. Forsythe, in the laboratory at Princeton, just
before I left, I had begun some atomic experiments, and out at the
furnace it struck me all of a heap, what it would do if we could treat
the ore at some ascertained temperature in the way I have found. Now,
in another case that I am working on, I may be able even to make the
process--"

"Help!" said Father. "Let's get down to business on this proposition
before we get to the other one."

And we all laughed, for it was funny to see the Idol with patches on
his trousers and hardly a day's living ahead, pass right over the
fifty thousand dollars, with more in the contract, and all the
sensation it had made, to begin to explain about what was out in the
shed now. He looked pained at our interruption and tried to begin
again, but Father interrupted him.

"Well, have you told this one to these 'bubbles,' as my young friend
Luttrell so appropriately calls them? By the way, the economical
Rogers had on the coat that Dr. Byrd had doctored for the cholera,
which I had asked him to destroy for me, and the Scout Leader was
right in his nose clue. I suppose that was what led him to suspect me
and shadow Rogers to the telegraph office. Great boy, that Luttrell!
But to return to the girls: If you have told Phyllis, I shall have to
keep her in solitary confinement until it is finished. Miss Roxanne, I
know, can be trusted at large."

I knew Father was just joking, by the eyelid and the corner of his
mouth, but the Idol drew himself up according to the old portrait
again before he spoke.

"Mr. Forsythe" he said, "I haven't any secret that Phyllis can't know.
If she accidentally gave this one away to Rogers--she can the next,
_and_ the next." He took my