class="c1">“If that’s the case, wouldn’t it be wiser for us to separate in advance and avoid the horrors of civil war? I’ll move out and leave you in peaceful possession of our cave if you wish.”

“No; I don’t want you to. I need you. That’s another compliment. You hold me down to earth. You’re a helpful influence, Darley, providing one knows you and takes you with allowance.”

The comment was whimsical, but beneath was a deeper, more tacit admission which both men 13 understood, that drowned the surface banter of the words.

“I think again, sometimes,” drifted on Armstrong, “that if the powers which are could only put us both in a pot as I put things together down in the laboratory, and melt us good and shake us up, so, until we were all mixed into one, it would make a better product than either of us as we are now.”

“Perhaps,” equivocally.

“But that’s the curse of it. The thing can’t be done. The Lord put us here, you you, and me me, and we’ve got to stick it out to the end.”

“And become enemies in the course of events.”

“Yes,” quickly, “but let’s not think about it. It’ll come soon enough; and meantime—” The sentence halted while with unconscious skill Armstrong rolled a cigarette—“and meantime,” he repeated as he scratched a match and waited for the sulphur to burn free, “I want to use you.” Again the sentence halted while he blew a cloud of smoke: “I had another offer to-day.”

Following the other’s example, Roberts lit a cigar, big and black, and sat puffing in judicial expectancy.

“It’s what you’d call a darned good offer,” explained Armstrong: “position as chemist to 14 the Graham Specialty Company, who are building the factory over on the East side—perfumes and toilet preparations and that sort of thing.”

“Yes.”

“Graham himself came to see me. As a matter of fact he’s the whole company. He labored with me for two hours. I had to manufacture an engagement out of whole cloth to get away.”

“And you decided—”

“I didn’t decide. I took the matter under advisement.”

“Which means that you did decide after all.”

Armstrong grimaced in a mannerism all his own, an action that ended in an all-expressive shrug. “I suppose so,” he admitted reluctantly.

“I hardly see where I can be of service then,” commented the other. “If you were ten years younger and a minor and I your guardian—”

“You might point out with your yardstick how many kinds of an idiot I am and stir me up.”

His companion smiled; as suddenly the look passed.

“I’d do so cheerfully if it would do any good. As it is—” The sentence ended in comprehensive silence. “What, by the way, did Graham offer?”

“Five thousand dollars a year, and if I made 15 good an interest later in the business. He said four thousand dollars to begin with and gradually crawled up.”

“You’re getting now from the University—”

“Twelve hundred.”

“With ultimate possibilities,—I emphasize possibilities—”

“I’ll be dean of the department some day if I stick.”

“With a salary of two thousand a year.”

Armstrong nodded.

“And that’s the end, the top round of the ladder if you were to remain until you were fifty and were displaced eventually without a pension.”

“Yes; that’s the biggest plum on the university tree. It can’t grow anything larger.”

In his place Darley Roberts dropped back as though he had nothing to say. Involuntarily, with a nervous impatience distinctive of him, his fingers tapped twice on the edge of the chair; then, aroused to attention, the hand lay still.

“Well?” commented Armstrong at length.

Roberts merely looked at him, not humorously nor with intent to tantalize, but with unconscious analysis written large upon his face.

“Well?” repeated Armstrong, “I’m waiting. The floor is yours.” 16

“I was merely wondering,” slowly, “how it would seem to be a person like you. I can’t understand.”

“No, you can’t, Darley. As I said a moment ago, we’re different as day is from night.”

“I was wondering another thing, too, Armstrong. Do you want to know what it was?”

“Yes; I know in advance I’ll not have to blush at a compliment.”

“I don’t know about that. I’m not the judge. I merely anticipated in fancy the time when you will wake up. You will some day. It’s inevitable. To borrow your phrase, ‘it’s written.’”

“You think so?” The accompanying smile was appreciative.

“I know so. It’s life we’re living, not fiction.”

“And when I do—pardon me—come out of it?” The questioner was still smiling.

“That’s what I was speculating on.” Again the impatient fingers tapped on the chair, and again halted at their own alarm. “You’ll either be a genius and blossom in a day, or be a dead failure and go to the devil by the shortest route.”

“You think there’s no possible middle trail?”

“Not for you. You’re not built that way.”

The prediction was spoken with finality—too 17 much finality to be taken humorously. Responsively, bit by bit, the smile left Armstrong’s face.

“I won’t attempt to answer that, Darley, or to defend myself. To come back to the point, you think I’m a fool not to accept Graham’s offer?”

As before, his companion shrugged unconsciously. That was all.

“Does it occur to you that I might possibly have a reason—one that, while it wouldn’t show up well under your tape line, to me seems adequate?”

“I’m not immune to reason.”

“You’d like to have me put it in words?”

“Yes, if you wish.”

“Well, then, first of all, I’ve spent ten years working up to where I am now. I’ve been through the mill from laboratory handy-man to assistant demonstrator, from that to demonstrator, up again to quiz-master, to substitute-lecturer, until now I’m at the head of my department. That looks small to you, I know; but to me it means a lot. Two hundred men, bright fellows too, fill up the amphitheatre every day and listen to me for an hour. They respect me, have confidence in my ability—and I try to merit it. That means I must study and keep up with the procession in my line. It’s an incentive that a man 18 can’t have any other way, a practical necessity. That’s the first reason. On the other hand, if I went to work for Graham I’d be dubbing around in a back room laboratory all by myself and doing what he wanted done whether it was interesting in the least or not.”

“In other words,” commented Roberts, “you’d be down to bed rock with the two hundred admirers removed from the bed.”

“I suppose so—looking at it that way.”

“All right. Go on.”

“The second reason is that my employment as full professor gives me an established position—call it social position if you wish—here in the University that I