about here to be the best locality anywhere near London for your experiments. I wish you well. Should you conclude to use the barn, let me know, and I will turn the key over to you immediately. Meanwhile I wish you luck!"

He went out without another word, leaving us alone with the talkative clock, and the dead grasses of the previous summer. I glanced at Torrence, who was pale, but with an indomitable look of courage in his eyes. I had seen it before.

It was impossible to say from Wetherbee's manner of departure, whether he intended to return or not. We could scarcely consider the interview ended, when we had made no movement toward going ourselves, and while deliberating what was best to do, there was a light step in the hall, and the door again opened, admitting a middle aged woman who approached us with a frown. We bowed.

"May I inquire the nature of your errand?" she began, without addressing either one of us in particular; but Torrence, stepping forward, answered:

"Our visit is hardly in the way of an errand, madam. We are here upon an important business engagement with Mr. Wetherbee, who I trust will soon return to give us an opportunity to continue our conversation."

"I was afraid so!" she replied with a look of regret. She sat down in the same chair that Wetherbee had occupied, and asked us to resume our seats. There was something odd in her manner, which betrayed deep concern in our visit. Putting her hand in her pocket she drew out a spectacle case, and placed the glasses upon her nose. Then she looked at us each in turn with growing interest.

"You need not conceal your business from me, gentlemen," she continued, "Mr. Wetherbee is my father. As you are aware, he is a very old man, and I am acting in the double capacity of nurse and guardian for him. He does nothing without my knowledge."

Her manner was thoroughly earnest, and the expression of her face that of deep concern. Torrence replied after a moment's hesitation as follows:

"While not for a moment doubting your statement, madam, would it not be a little more regular to ask Mr. Wetherbee's consent before speaking of a matter in which he is equally interested with ourselves? If he says so, I shall be more than willing to explain to you all that we have been talking about. Meanwhile I can only say that our business was upon a matter of great importance, which I should hardly feel at liberty to divulge without the agreement of all parties concerned."

She did not answer for several minutes, during which time the hard look in her eyes softened; I even thought they were dimmed with tears. For a moment she averted her face and taking off her glasses polished them thoroughly, returning them to her pocket. Then she stared into the fire as if thinking how to proceed, and then without removing her eyes, said:

"I shall not ask your business, gentlemen, but I will tell you something of mine. Mr. Wetherbee, my father, is, I am pained to confess, a monomaniac on the subject of inventions. His fortune, which once was ample, has been squandered in all manner of mechanical foolery, for I can call it by no other name. An inventor who could once gain his eye through the medium of print, or his ear, through that of speech, could wring whatever money out of him he chose. Finding that our means were becoming scattered, and our credit going, and my good father unable to see that he was imposed upon, I applied to the courts for his guardianship, on the ground of mental disability. He has no money whatever that he can call his own; the little that is left between us being at my disposal. Should you have plans requiring pecuniary aid, I must tell you frankly now, that it will be impossible to obtain it here."

She stopped, and Torrence and I stared at each other aghast.

"But, madam!" I exclaimed, unable to contain myself, "We have come all the way from America, and at great personal inconvenience and expense, in response to your father's letters, and should he refuse to aid us now we are ruined."

"It is impossible—quite impossible, I assure you, my dear sirs, to keep track of my father's correspondence. He answers everything he finds in the papers relating to patents. It is unfortunate, deeply unfortunate, but cannot be helped. The public has repeatedly been warned against him through the newspapers, and we can do no more."

"It is indeed most unfortunate," said Torrence; "but let me ask you, madam, if in the event of my being able to demonstrate, to your entire satisfaction, the inestimable value of my air ship, you could be induced to aid in its construction?"

"Alas, my dear sir, I have not the means!"

There was a painful silence, in which, to me, the end of all things was in sight. Mentally I ran over the account of our cash, and roughly estimated how long it would last. Much as we had abused Mrs. Twitcham's lodging, I foresaw that we should have to leave it for a worse one.

"Is there, then, nothing that could induce you to take an interest in our scheme? Remember it is the invention of the century. All the railways, all the telegraphs in existence will be counted trifling by comparison when it shall be built and given commercial value. Remember also, that the insignificant sum required, will be repaid ten times over within sixty days. Remember, my dear madam, that in refusing to aid us, you are throwing away the greatest material blessing that man can possibly acquire. It is the dream of the ages—the culmination of every hope. Think well before you refuse!"

I was so wrought up that I spoke more earnestly than ever before, realizing that if we failed with Wetherbee & Hart, we were outcasts. But all my enthusiasm, and all my brother's eloquence were futile.

"It is not that I will not, it is that I cannot," repeated the lady, who really did not appear lacking in sympathy. or a due comprehension of the situation.

"Then have you no friends," I persisted, "who might be induced to take a share in the invention, I should say discovery, for it is indeed more of a discovery than otherwise?"

"Most of our friends have already lost money through my father's infatuation, or weakness, and I dare not mention the subject to any of them."

We got up to go, thanking the lady for her explanation, and the interest she had shown. At the door, Torrence stopped.

"I was about to forget," he said; "your father told us of a barn which he would place at our disposal, should we need it for a workshop. Is the offer still open?"

The lady smiled, and said she could not refuse so simple a thing, especially when we had come so far, and had a right to expect so much. We thanked her, bade her farewell and departed.

We passed again down the cemented path between the boxwood bushes, and through the iron gate. When out once more upon the open highway, Torrence turned toward me, and with an air of surprising indifference, said:

"It looks as though we were checkmated, old man, but we're not. These people have only stirred up the mettle in me, and I shall build the air ship despite all of them."

As I have said before, my brother was an extraordinary man; possessed of a fertile mind, an indomitable will, and withal a secretiveness which even showed itself occasionally to me. We walked on in