al fellow to set them right, and start companies
and things to work them, and so make a lot of money."

He took off his cap and ran his hand up his hair. "There's also the new
gun. I do wish you'd have that, too," he added, anxiously. "In fact, it
was our talk yesterday that put the other idea into my head."

Sypher clapped him on the shoulder and called him his dear, generous
fellow. But how could he accept?

"They're not all rot," said Septimus pleadingly. "There's a patent
corkscrew which works beautifully. Wiggleswick always uses it."

Sypher laughed. "Well, I'll tell you what we can do. We can get a syndicate
together to run the Dix inventions, and pay you royalties on sales."

"That seems a very good idea," said Zora judicially.

But Septimus looked dissatisfied. "I wanted to give them to Sypher," said
he.

Zora reminded him laughingly that he would have to provide for the future
member of Parliament's election expenses. The royalties would come in
handy. She could not take Septimus's inventions seriously. But Sypher spoke
of them later in his enthusiastic way.

"Who knows? There may be things hidden among his models and specifications
of enormous commercial value. Lots of his inventions are crazy, but some
are bound to be practical. This field gun, for instance. The genius who
could have hit on that is capable of inventing anything. Why shouldn't I
devote my life to spreading the Dix inventions over the earth? It's a
colossal idea. Not one invention, but fifty--from a corkscrew to a machine
gun. It's better than Sypher's Cure, isn't it?"

She glanced swiftly at him to see whether the last words were spoken in
bitterness. They were not. His face beamed as it had beamed in the days
when he had rhapsodied over the vision of an earth, one scab, to be healed
by Sypher's Cure.

"Say you think it's better," he urged.

"Yes. It's better," she assented. "But it's chimerical."

"So are all the dreams ever dreamed by man. I shouldn't like to pass my
life without dreams, Zora. I could give up tobacco and alcohol and clean
collars and servants, and everything you could think of--but not dreams.
Without them the earth is just a sort of backyard of a place."

"And with them?" said Zora.

"An infinite garden."

"I'm afraid you'll be disillusioned over poor Septimus," she said, "but I
shouldn't like you to take up anything you didn't believe in. What would be
quite honest in another man wouldn't be honest in you.