difficulty, and grasped the chain as directed.

"Hold tight!" exclaimed the professor, and drew the pin from the clevis.

Thus released the cube rose to the ceiling, lifting the four gentlemen with it. They hung in mid-air until Quinn drew the table under them, and they dropped to its top, each in turn, and so reached the floor.

Bewilderment was written large in the faces of the quartet, their credulity struggling against the evidence of their senses.

"You are a good magician, sir," averred Popham, brushing the damp from his forehead with a handkerchief.

"You could make your fortune as an entertainer," declared Gilhooly.

J. Archibald Meigs chewed briskly on an unlighted cigar, while Hannibal Markham kept his eyes on the cube and dangling chain like one fascinated.

"It is the fate of a man who makes startling discoveries to be classed among disciples in black art," observed Quinn calmly. "What is the hour, Mr. Gilhooly?" he asked.

The head of the railway pool consulted his repeater.

"Eleven-fourteen," he replied.

"And high time I was going," added Popham.

"Just a few moments more," said the professor.

Turning to the wall behind him, he caught a small lever and turned it over as far as it would go. The castle vibrated slightly, communicating a perceptible swaying motion to the pendent chain.

"What's this?" cried Markham, jumping up.

"Do not be alarmed, my friends," cried Quinn, whirling around.

His face was pallid as death, and his beady eyes gleamed like coals. Then, wonder of wonders, the white cube settled to the floor.

"Ha!" shouted Popham. "Your anti-gravity compound is not very long lived, it seems to me."

"You will find differently, to your cost!" returned the professor through his teeth. "Augustus Popham, I, Kenward Quinn, arraign you, and Emmet Gilhooly, and J. Archibald Meigs, and Hannibal Markham as foes of the human race! You are leeches who would suck the life-blood from the veins of the poor——"

With steady forefinger, Quinn had transfixed each of the plutocrats as he called his name. Markham was already on his feet, and the other three were not slow in following him.

"What's this, what's this?" gasped Gilhooly.

"An insult!" muttered Popham.

"The old addle-pate is not accountable for what he says or does," remarked J. Archibald Meigs.

"We had best leave this steel trap of his while there is yet time," counseled Markham.

"While there is yet time!" repeated Quinn, with a wild laugh. "A pretty set of conspirators you are, on my soul! Markham, there, would raise the price of food until the poor would go hungry; you, Meigs, would so manipulate the cost of clothing that they would not have the wherewithal to cover their nakedness; Popham would make fuel a luxury of the rich; and Gilhooly would so boost passenger and freight rates as to quadruple to the consumer the tremendous cost of the necessities of life. Deny me if you can, if you dare!"

Quinn looked like a Nemesis as he confronted the four men and lashed them with his scorpion whip of words.

"Fiddlededee!" exclaimed Popham.

"We deserve it," said Meigs, "for it was the height of folly for us to come here, in the first place."

"Is this why you brought us here?" asked Markham, "to air your own particular ideas on sociology and to make us the victims of your abuse?"

The professor threw back his head and straightened his shoulders. It was the real thing in dignity that he showed those plutocrats, and my nerves tingled with admiration. I was sorry I had come to the castle with designs oh Quinn's portable property, and doubly glad that I could force tribute from these four who were badgering him.

"I am not unjust," averred the professor, "and such a thing as abuse is farthest from my mind; but I love the plain people, the bone and sinew of this glorious republic, and it arouses my indignation when the right to live and let live is trampled upon by any one man, or set of men."

"Platitudes!" sneered Popham.

"To call a truth a platitude is witless argument," answered Quinn serenely.

"Be that as it may," said Meigs, "we were not invited here for a debate but to witness a demonstration of what you were pleased to term a revolutionizing discovery."

"You have seen me overcome the force of gravity," went on the professor, "and to astute minds like yours further explanation seems uncalled for. In destroying gravity I produce a power equalled by no other force in the world. The 'pull' of an insulated block the size of that one"—and here he waved his hand toward the cube—"is equal to the strength of a hundred horses. Develop that 'pull' horizontally instead of vertically, and we have a locomotive that runs continuously without the consumption of a pound of coal. That," cried the professor, his voice ringing with triumph, "is the apotheosis of power!"

Gilhooly, judging from his manner, was the victim of uncomfortable thoughts; Meigs wore a startled look, and Markham seemed half convinced. Popham, alone, was brusque and uncompromising.

"I think we had better get out of here," again suggested Markham. His half convictions appeared to arouse some small amount of apprehension.

"I'm of the same opinion," spoke up Meigs.

"Wait a little," suggested Popham, and I saw a gleam in his eyes that meant a stroke of some kind. Once more he faced Quinn. "I have no patience with your harebrained theories," he went on, "and I have seen charlatans work greater wonders than what you are pleased to call your 'demonstration.' But it is a business principle of mine to buy up these promising theories if they happen to run counter to any pet scheme I am trying to put through. Sir, rather than be annoyed further with this chimerical idea of yours, I will pay five thousand dollars, spot cash, just to have you give over your notions and quit experimenting."

Professor Quinn laughed.

"Five thousand dollars!" he exclaimed; then added, as though to himself, "He would have me sell the welfare and happiness of the people for five thousand dollars!"

"I will add another five thousand to Popham's offer." put in Gilhooly, "not because I am afraid your discoveries will upset the transportation interests of the country, but simply to clear the commercial atmosphere and keep your visionary ideas from affecting the price of stocks."

"Let me add another five thousand," said Meigs. "I don't see how your invention, even if it is all you claim for it, could affect me or my interests one way or the other, but I will add my contribution simply because Popham has taken the initiative."

"Count me in for the same amount," supplemented Markham, "on the condition that Professor Quinn signs over to the four of us all his right, title and interest in his non-gravity invention, and covenants to leave that field entirely