on the floors at first, you know."

"Oh, I'm going to have the entire thing done over--room by room--when I
can afford it. Meanwhile _j'y suis, j'y reste_. . . . Look there, Phil!
That's to be your room."

"Thanks, old fellow--not now."

"Why, yes! I expected you'd have your room here, Phil--"

"It's very good of you, Boots, but I can't do it."

Lansing faced him: "_Won't_ you?"

Selwyn, smiling, shook his head; and the other knew it was final.

"Well, the room will be there--furnished the way you and I like it. When
you want it, make smoke signals or wig-wag."

"I will; thank you, Boots."

Lansing said unaffectedly, "How soon do you think you can afford a house
like this?"

"I don't know; you see, I've only my income now--"

"Plus what you make at the office--"

"I've left Neergard."

"What!"

"This morning; for good."

"The deuce!" he murmured, looking at Selwyn; but the latter volunteered
no further information, and Lansing, having given him the chance,
cheerfully switched to the other track:

"Shall I see whether the Air Line has anything in _your_ line, Phil? No?
Well, what are you going to do?"

"I don't exactly know what I shall do. . . . If I had capital--enough--I
think I'd start in making bulk and dense powders--all sorts; gun-cotton,
nitro-powders--"

"You mean you'd like to go on with your own invention--Chaosite?"

"I'd like to keep on experimenting with it if I could afford to. Perhaps
I will. But it's not yet a commercial possibility--if it ever is to be.
I wish I could control it; the ignition is simultaneous and absolutely
complete, and there is not a trace of ash, not an unburned or partly
burned particle. But it's not to be trusted, and I don't know what
happens to it after a year's storage."

For a while they discussed the commercial possibilities of Chaosite, and
how capital might be raised for a stock company; but Selwyn was not
sanguine, and something of his mental depression returned as he sat
there by the curtainless window, his head on his closed hand, looking
out into the sunny street.

"Anyway," said Lansing, "you've nothing to worry over."

"No, nothing," assented Selwyn listlessly.

After a silence Lansing added: "But you do a lot of worrying all the
same, Phil."

Selwyn flushed up and denied it.

"Yes, you do! I don't believe you realise how much of the time you are
out of spirits."

"Does it impress you that way?" asked Selwyn, mortified; "because I'm