The two men looked at one another across the round table. Mr.Waddington heaved a sigh.
"I shouldn't bother about that sale, if I were you," Burton whispered hoarsely. "I tell you what it is, I daren't go on like this any longer. I shall do something desperate. This horrible place is getting attractive to me! I shall probably sit here and order more beer and wait till Maud comes; I shall stay to lunch and sit with my arm around her afterwards! I am going to take a bean at once."
Mr. Waddington sighed and produced the snuff-box from his waistcoat pocket. Burton followed suit. The young woman, leaning across the counter, watched them curiously.
"What's that you're taking?" she inquired. "Something for indigestion?"
"Not exactly," Mr. Waddington replied. "It's a little ailment I'm suffering from, and Burton too."
They both swallowed their beans. Burton gave a deep sigh.
"I feel safe again," he murmured. "I am certain that I was on the point of suggesting that she send up for Maud. We might have taken them out together to-night, Mr. Waddington—had dinner at Frascati's, drunk cheap champagne, and gone to a music-hall!"
"Burton," Mr. Waddington said calmly, "I do not for a moment believe that we should so far have forgotten ourselves. I don't know how you are feeling, but the atmosphere of this place is most distasteful to me. These tawdry decorations are positively vicious. The odor, too, is insufferable."
Burton rose hastily to his feet.
"I quite agree with you," he said. "Let us get out as quickly as we can."
"Something," Mr. Waddington went on, "ought to be done to prevent the employment of young women in a public place. It is enough to alter one's whole opinion of the sex to see a brazen-looking creature like that lounging about the bar, and to be compelled to be served by her if one is in need of a little refreshment."
Burton nodded his approbation.
"How we could ever have found our way into the place," he said, "I can't imagine."
"A moment or two ago," Mr. Waddington groaned, "you were thinking of sending up for Maud."
Burton, at this, wiped the perspiration from his forehead.
"Please don't remind me of it," he begged. "Let us get away as quickly as we can."
The young lady leaned over from the bar, holding out a hand, none too clean, on which sparkled several rings.
"Well, you're in a great hurry all at once," she remarked. "Can't you stay a bit longer?"—She glanced at the clock.—"Maud will be down in ten minutes. You're not going away after all this time without leaving a message or something for her, Mr. Burton, surely?"
Burton looked at her across the counter as one might look at some strange creature from a foreign world, a creature to be pitied, perhaps, nothing more.
"I am afraid," he said, "that mine was only a chance visit. Pray remember me to Miss Maud, if you think it would be any satisfaction to her."
The young woman stared at him.
"My, but you are funny!" she declared. "You were always such a one for acting! I'll give her your love, never fear. I shall tell her you'll be round later in the day. On Thursday night, then," she added, turning to Mr. Waddington, "if I don't see you before, and if you really mean you're not going to stay for lunch. I'll meet you at the corner as usual."
Mr. Waddington turned away without apparently noticing the outstretched hand. He raised his hat, however, most politely. "If I should be prevented," he began,—The young woman glared at him.
"Look here, I've had enough of this shilly-shallying!" she exclaimed sharply. "Do you mean taking me out on Thursday or do you not?—because there's a gentleman who comes in here for his beer most every morning who's most anxious I should dine out with him my next night off. I've only to say the word and he'll fetch me in a taxicab. I'm not sure that he hasn't got a motor of his own. No more nonsense, if you please, Mr. Waddington," she continued, shaking out her duster. "Is that an engagement with you on Thursday night, or is it not?"
Mr. Waddington measured with his eye the distance to the door. He gripped Burton's arm and looked over his shoulder.
"It is not," he said firmly.
They left the place a little precipitately. Once in the open air, however, they seemed quickly to recover their equanimity. Burton breathed a deep sigh of relief.
"I must go and change my clothes, Mr. Waddington," he declared. "I don't know how on earth I could have come out looking such a sight. I feel like working, too."
"Such a lovely morning!" Mr. Waddington sighed, gazing up at the sky. "If only one could escape from these hateful streets and get out into the country for a few hours! Have you ever thought of travelling abroad, Burton?"
"Have you?" Burton asked.
Mr. Waddington nodded.
"I have it in my mind at the present moment," he admitted. "Imagine the joy of wandering about in Rome or Florence, say, just looking at the buildings one has heard of all one's life! And the picture galleries—just fancy the picture galleries, Burton! What a dream! Have you ever been to Paris?"
"Never," Burton confessed sadly.
"Nor I," Mr. Waddington continued. "I have been lying awake at nights lately, thinking of Versailles. Why do we waste our time here at all, I wonder, in this ugly little corner of the universe?"
Burton smiled.
"There is something of the hedonist about you, Mr. Waddington," he remarked. "To me these multitudes of people are wonderful. I seem driven always to seek for light in the crowded places."
Mr. Waddington called a taxicab.
"Can I give you a lift?" he asked. "I have no sale until the afternoon. I shall go to one of the galleries. I want to escape from the memory of the last half-hour!"
There came a time when Burton finished his novel. He wrapped it up very carefully in brown paper and set out to call upon his friend the sub-editor. He gained his sanctum without any particular trouble and was warmly greeted.
"Why haven't you brought us anything lately?" the sub-editor asked.
Burton tapped the parcel which he was carrying.
"I have written a novel," he said.
The sub-editor was not in the least impressed—in fact he shook his head.
"There are too many novels," he declared.
"I am afraid," Burton replied, "that there will have to be one more, or else I must starve."
"Why have you brought it here, anyhow?"
"I thought you might tell me what to do with it," Burton answered, diffidently.
The sub-editor sighed and drew a sheet of note-paper towards him. He wrote a few lines and put them in an envelope.
"There is a letter of introduction to a publisher," he explained."Frankly, I don't think it is worth the paper it is written on.Nowadays, novels are published or not, either according to their meritor the possibility of their appealing to the public taste."
Burton looked at the address.
"Thank you very much," he said. "I will take this in myself."
"When are you going to bring us something?" the sub-editor inquired.
"I am going home to try and write something now," Burton replied. "It is either that or the pawnshop."
The sub-editor nodded.
"Novels are all very well for amusement," he said, "but they don't bring in bread and cheese. Come right up to me as soon as you've got something."
Burton left his novel at the address which the sub-editor had given him, and went back to his lodgings. He let himself in with a latchkey. The caretaker of the floor bustled up to him as he turned towards the door of his room.
"Don't know that I've done right, sir," she remarked, doubtfully. "There was a young person here, waiting about to see you, been waiting the best part of an hour. I let her into your sitting-room."
"Any name?" Burton asked.
The caretaker looked thoughtfully up at the ceiling.
"Said she was your wife, sir. Sorry if I've done wrong. It came over me afterwards that I'd been a bit rash."
Burton threw open the door of his sitting-room and closed it quickly behind him. It was indeed Ellen who was sitting in the most uncomfortable chair, with her arms folded, in an attitude of grim but patient resignation. She was still wearing the hat with the wing, the mauve scarf, the tan shoes, and the velveteen gown. A touch of the Parisienne, however, was supplied to her costume by a black veil dotted over with purple spots. Her taste in perfumes was obviously unaltered.
"Ellen!" he exclaimed.
"Well?" she replied.
As a monosyllabic start to a conversation, Ellen's "Well?" created difficulties. Instead of his demanding an explanation, she was doing it. Burton was conscious that his opening was not brilliant.
"Why, this is quite a surprise!" he said. "I had no idea you were here."
"Dare say not," she answered. "Didn't know I was coming myself till I found myself on the doorstep. Kind of impulse, I suppose. What have you been doing to little Alf?"
Burton looked at her in bewilderment.
"Doing to the boy?" he repeated. "I haven't seen him since I saw you last."
"That's all very well for a tale," Ellen replied, "but you're not going to tell me that he's come into these ways naturally."
"What ways?" Burton exclaimed. "My dear Ellen, you must be a little more explicit. I tell you that I have not seen the child since I was at Garden Green. I am utterly ignorant of anything which may have happened to him."
Ellen remained entirely unconvinced.
"There's things about," she declared, "which I don't understand nor don't want to. First of all you go dotty. Now the same sort of thing seems to have come to little Alf, and what I want to know is what you mean by it? It's all rubbish for you to expect me to believe that he's taken to this naturally."
Burton put his hand to his head for a moment.
"Go on," he said. "Unless you tell me what has happened to Alfred, I cannot even attempt to help you."
"Well, I'll tell you fast enough," Ellen assured him, "though you needn't take that for a proof that I believe what you say. He's been a changed child ever since you were down last. Came home from the school and complained about the other boys not washing properly. Wanted a bath every day, and made me buy him a new toothbrush. Brushes his hair and washes his hands every time he goes out. Took a dislike to his tie and burned it. Plagued me to death till I got him a new suit of clothes—plain, ugly things, too, he would have. He won't have nothing to do with his friends, chucked playing marbles or hopscotch, and goes out in the country, picking flowers. Just to humor him, the first lot he brought home I put in one of those vases that ma brought us from Yarmouth, and what do you think he did?—threw the vase out of the window and bought with his own pocket money a plain china bowl."
Burton listened in blank amazement. As yet the light had not come.
"Go on," he murmured. "Anything else?"
"Up comes his master a few days ago," Ellen continued. "Fairly scared me to death. Said the boy showed signs of great talent in drawing. Talent in drawing, indeed! I'll give him talent! Wanted me to have him go to night school and pay for extra lessons. Said he thought the boy would turn out an artist. Nice bit of money there is in that!"
"What did you tell him?" Burton asked.
"I told him to stop putting silly ideas into the child's head," Ellen replied. "We don't want to make no artist of Alfred. Into an office he's got to go as soon as he's passed his proper standard, and that's what I told his schoolmaster. Calling Alf a genius, indeed!"
"Is this all that's troubling you?" Burton inquired calmly.
"All?" Ellen cried. "Bless my soul, as though it wasn't enough! A nice harmless boy as ever was until that day that you came down. You don't seem to understand. He's like a little old man. Chooses his words, corrects my grammar, keeps himself so clean you can almost smell the soap. What I say is that it isn't natural in a child of his age."
Burton smiled.
"Well, really," he said, "I don't see anything to worry about in what you have told me."
"Don't you!" Ellen replied. "Well, just you listen to me and answer my question. I left Alf alone with you while I changed my—while I looked after the washing the day you came, and what I want to know is, did you give him one of those things that you talked to me about?"
"I certainly did not," Burton answered.
Then a light broke in upon him. Ellen saw the change in his face.
"Well, what is it?" she asked sharply. "I can see you know all about it."
"There were the two beans you threw out of the window," he said. "He must have picked up one."
"Beans, indeed!" Ellen replied, scornfully. "Do you mean to tell me that a bean would work all this mischief in the child?"
"I happen to know that it would."
"Comes of picking up things in the street!" Ellen exclaimed. "I'll give it him when I get back, I will!"
"You must forgive me," Burton said, "but I really don't see what you have to complain about. From what you tell me, I should consider the boy very much improved."
"Improved!" Ellen repeated. "An unnatural little impudent scallywag of a child! You don't think I want a schoolmaster in knickerbockers about the place all the time? Found fault with my clothes yesterday, hid some of the ornaments in the parlor, and I caught him doing a sketch of a woman the other day with not a shred of clothes on. Said it was a copy of some statue in the library. It may be your idea of how a boy nine years old should go on, but it isn't mine, and that's straight."
Burton sighed.
"My dear Ellen," he said, "we do not look at this matter from the same point of view, but fortunately as you will say, unfortunately from my point of view, the change in Alfred is not likely to prove lasting. You will find in another few weeks that he will be himself again."
"Don't believe it," Ellen declared. "He's as set in his ways now as a little old man."
Burton shook his head.
"It won't last, I know it."
"Lasts with you all right!" she snapped.
Burton opened his little silver box.
"It lasts with me only as long as these little beans last," he replied. "You see, I have only two left. When they are gone, I shall be back again."
"If you think," Ellen exclaimed, "that you're going to march into Clematis Villa just when you feel like it, and behave as though nothing has happened, all I can say, my man, is that you're going to be disappointed! You've kept away so long you can keep away for good. We can do without you, me and Alf."
Burton still held the box in his hand.
"I suppose," he ventured slowly, "I couldn't persuade you to take one?"
Ellen rose to her feet. She threw the scarf around her neck, buttoned her gloves, and shook out her skirt. She picked up the satchel which she had been carrying and prepared to depart.
"If you say anything more to me about your beastly beans," she said, "I'll lose my temper, and that's straight. Can you tell me how to bring little Alf to himself again? That's all I want to know."
"Time will do that, unfortunately," Burton assured her. "Where is he this afternoon?
"It's his half-holiday," Ellen replied, in a tone of disgust, "and where do you think he's gone? Gone to a museum to look at some statues! The schoolmaster called for him. They've gone off together. All I can say is that if he don't turn natural again before long, you can have him. He don't belong to me no longer."
"I am willing to take the responsibility," Burton replied, "if it is necessary. Will you let me give you some tea?"
"I want nothing from you except my weekly money that the law provides for," Ellen answered fiercely. "You can keep your tea. And mind what I say, too. It's no use coming down to Clematis Villa and talking about the effect of the bean having worn off and being yourself again. You seem pretty comfortable here and you can stay here until I'm ready for you. Oh, bother holding the door open!" she added, angrily. "I hate such tricks! Get out of the way and let me pass. I can let myself out. More fool me for coming! I might have known you'd have nothing sensible to say."
"I'm afraid," Burton admitted, "that we do rather look at this matter from different points of view, but, as I told you before, you will find very soon that Alfred will be just the same as he used to be."
"If he don't alter," Ellen declared, looking back from the door, "you'll find him here one day by Carter Patterson's, with a label around his neck. I'm not one for keeping children about the place that know more than their mothers. I give him another three weeks, and not a day longer. What do you think was the last thing he did? Went and had his hair cut—wanted to get rid of his curl, he said."
"I can't blame him for that," Burton remarked, smiling. "I never thought it becoming. Will you shake hands, Ellen, before you go?"
"I won't!" she replied, drawing up her skirt in genteel fashion. "I want nothing to do with you. Only, if he don't alter, well, just you look out, for you'll find him on your doorstep."
She departed in a "Lily of the Valley" scent and little fragments of purple fluff. Burton threw himself into an easy-chair.
"If one could only find the tree," he muttered to himself. "What a life for the boy! Poor little chap!"
The novel which was to bring immortal fame and, incidentally, freedom from all financial responsibilities, to Burton, came back within a week, with a polite note which he was at first inclined to accept as some consolation until he found that it was stereotyped. Within a few hours it was despatched to another firm of publishers, taken at random from the advertisement columns of the Times. An hour or two afterwards Alfred arrived, with no label around his neck, but a veritable truant. Of the two he was the more self-possessed as he greeted his amazed parent.
"I am sorry if you are angry about my coming, father," he said, a little tremulously. "Something seems to have happened to mother during the last few days. Everything that I do displeases her."
"I am not angry," Burton declared, after a moment's amazed silence. "The only thing is," he added, glancing helplessly around, "I don't know what to do with you. I have no servants here and only my one little bed."
The child smiled. He appeared to consider these matters unimportant.
"You eat things sometimes, I suppose, daddy?" he said, apologetically. "I left home before breakfast this morning and it took me some time to find my way here."
"Sit down for five minutes," Burton directed him, "and I'll take you out somewhere."
Burton was glad to get into the privacy of his small bedroom and sit down for a moment. The thing was amazing enough when it had happened to himself. It was, perhaps, more amazing still to watch its effect upon Mr. Waddington. But certainly this was the most astounding development of all! The child was utterly transformed. There was no sign of his mother's hand upon his clothes, his neatly brushed hair or his shiny face. His eyes, too, seemed to have grown bigger. Alfred had been a vulgar little boy, addicted to slang and immoderately fond of noisy games. Burton tried to call him back to his mind. It was impossible to connect him in any way with the child whom, through a crack in the door, he could see standing upon a chair the better to scrutinize closely the few engravings which hung upon the wall. Without a doubt, a new responsibility in life had arrived. To meet it, Burton had a little less than two pounds, and the weekly money to send to Ellen within a few days. He took Alfred out to luncheon.
"I am afraid," he said, beginning their conversation anew, "that even if I am able to keep you with me for a short time, you will find it exceedingly dull."
"I do not mind being dull in the least, father," the boy replied. "Mother is always wanting me to play silly games out in the street, with boys whom I don't like at all."
"I used to see you playing with them often," his father reminded him.
The child looked puzzled. He appeared to be trying to recollect something.
"Daddy, some things in the world seem so funny," he said, thoughtfully. "I know that I used to like to play with Teddy Miles and Dick, hopscotch and marbles, and relievo. Relievo is a very rough game, and marbles makes one very dirty and dusty. Still, I know that I used to like to play those games. I don't want to now a bit. I would rather read. If you are busy, daddy, I shan't mind a bit. Please don't think that you will have to play with me. I want to read, I shall be quite happy reading all the time. Mr. Denschem has given me a list of books. Perhaps you have some of them. If not, couldn't we get some out of a library?"
Burton looked at the list which the boy produced, and groaned to himself.
"My dear Alfred," he protested, "these books are for almost grown-up people."
The boy smiled confidently.
"Mr. Denschem gave me the list, father," he repeated simply.
After lunch, Burton took the boy round to Mr. Waddington's office. Mr.Waddington was deep in a book of engravings which he had just purchased.He welcomed Burton warmly and gazed with surprise at the child.
"Alfred," his father directed, "go and sit in that easy-chair for a few minutes. I want to talk to Mr. Waddington."
The child obeyed at once. His eyes, however, were longingly fixed upon the book of engravings.
"Perhaps you would like to have a look at these?" Mr. Waddington suggested.
Alfred held out his hands eagerly.
"Thank you very much," he said. "It is very kind of you. I am very fond of this sort of picture."
Burton took Mr. Waddington by the arm and led him out into the warehouse.
"Whose child is that?" the latter demanded curiously.
"Mine," Burton groaned. "Can you guess what has happened?"
Mr. Waddington looked puzzled.
"You remember the day I went down to Garden Green? You gave me two beans to give to Ellen and the child. It was before we knew that their action was not permanent."
"I remember quite well," Mr. Waddington confessed.
"You remember I told you that Ellen threw them both into the street? A man who was wheeling a fruit barrow picked up one. I told you about that?"
"Yes!"
"This child picked up the other," Burton declared, solemnly.
Mr. Waddington stared at him blankly. "You don't mean to tell me," he said, "that this is the ill-dressed, unwashed, unmannerly little brat whom your wife brought into the office one day, and who turned the ink bottles upside down and rubbed the gum on his hands?"
"This is the child," Burton admitted.
"God bless my soul!" Mr. Waddington muttered.
They sat down together on the top of a case. Neither of them found words easy.
"He's taken to drawing," Burton continued slowly, "hates the life at home, goes out for walks with the schoolmaster. He's got a list of books to read—classics every one of them."
"Poor little fellow!" Mr. Waddington said to himself. "And to think that in three weeks or a month—"
"And in the meantime," Burton interrupted, "here he is on my hands. He's run away from home—as I did. I don't wonder at it. What do you advise me to do, Mr. Waddington?"
"What can you do?" Mr. Waddington replied. "You must keep him until—"
"Upon children," Burton said thoughtfully, "the effect may be more lasting. No news, I suppose, of the tree?"
Mr. Waddington shook his head sorrowfully. "I've had a private detective now working ever since that day," he declared. "The man thinks me, of course, a sort of lunatic, but I have made it worth his while to find it. I should think that every child in the neighborhood has been interviewed. What about the novel?"
"Come back from the publishers," Burton replied. "I have sent it away to some one else."
Mr. Waddington looked at him compassionately.
"You were relying upon that, were you not?"
"Entirely," Burton admitted. "If I don't earn some money beforeSaturday, I shan't know how to send the three pounds to Ellen."
"You had better," Mr. Waddington said gently, accept a trifling loan.
"Not if I can help it," Burton answered, hastily. "Thank you all the same, Mr. Waddington, but I would rather not. We will see what happens. I am going back now to try and write something."
They returned to the office. Burton pointed towards the easy-chair.
"Look!"
Mr. Waddington nodded. Alfred had propped up the book of engravings before him, was holding a sheet of paper on the blotting-pad, and with a pencil was intently copying one of the heads. They crossed the room and peered over his shoulder. For an untrained child it was an amazing piece of work.
"It is a Botticelli head," Mr. Waddington whispered. "Look at the outline."
The boy glanced up and saw them standing there. He excused himself gracefully.
"You don't mind, sir, do you?" he asked Mr. Waddington. "I took a sheet of paper from your office. This head was so wonderful, I wanted to carry away something that would remind me of it."
"If you like," Mr. Waddington offered, "I will lend you the book of engravings. Then when your father is busy you could make copies of some that please you."
The boy's cheeks were pink and his eyes soft.
"How lovely!" he exclaimed. "Father, may I have it?"
He left the office with the book clasped under his arm. On the way home, Burton bought him some drawing-paper and pencils. For the remainder of the afternoon they both worked in silence. Of the two, the boy was the more completely engrossed. Towards five o'clock Burton made tea, which they took together. Alfred first carefully washed his hands, and his manners at table were irreproachable. Burton began to feel uncomfortable. He felt that the spirit of some older person had come to him in childlike guise. There was so little to connect this boy with the Alfred of his recollections. In looking over his work, too, Burton was conscious of an almost awed sense of a power in this child's fingers which could have been directed by no ordinary inspiration. From one to another of those prints, the outlines of which he had committed to paper, the essential quality of the work, the underlying truth, seemed inevitably to be reproduced. There were mistakes of perspective and outline, crudities, odd little touches, and often a failure of proportion, and yet that one fact always remained. The meaning of the picture was there. The only human note about the child seemed to be that, looking at him shortly after tea-time, Burton discovered that he had fallen asleep in his chair.
Burton took up his hat and stole softly out of the room. As quickly as he could, he made his way to the offices of the Piccadilly Gazette and sought his friend the sub-editor. The sub-editor greeted him with a nod.
"Heard about your novel yet?" he inquired.
"I had it back this morning," his caller replied. "I have sent it away somewhere else. I have written you a little study of 'The Children of London.' I hope you will like it."
The sub-editor nodded and glanced it through. He laid it down by his side and for the first time there seemed to be a shadow of hesitation in his tone.
"Don't force yourself, Burton," he advised, looking curiously at his contributor. "We will use this in a day or two. You can apply at the cashier's office for your cheque when you like. But if you don't mind my saying so, there are little touches here, repetitions, that might be improved, I think."
Burton thanked him and went home with money in his pocket. He undressed the boy, who sleepily demanded a bath, put him to sleep in his own bed, and threw himself into an easy-chair. It was late, but he had not troubled to light a lamp. He sat for hours looking out into the shadows. A new responsibility, indeed, had come into life. He was powerless to grapple with it. The grotesqueness of the situation appalled him. How could he plan or dream like other men when the measure of the child's existence, as of his own, could be counted by weeks? For the first time since his emancipation he looked back into the past without a shudder. If one had realized, if one had only taken a little pains, would it not have been possible to have escaped from the life of bondage by less violent but more permanent means? It was only the impulse which was lacking. He sat dreaming there until he fell into a deep sleep.
Mr. Bomford in his town clothes was a strikingly adequate reflection of the fashion of the times. From the tips of his patent boots, his neatly tied black satin tie, his waistcoat with its immaculate white slip, to his glossy silk hat, he was an entirely satisfactory reproduction. The caretaker who admitted him to Burton's rooms sighed as she let him in. He represented exactly her ideal of a gentleman.
"Mr. Burton and the little boy are both in the sitting-room, sir," she announced, opening the door. "A gentleman to see you, sir."
Burton looked up from his writing-table for a moment somewhat vaguely.Mr. Bomford, who had withdrawn his glove, held out his hand.
"I trust, Mr. Burton, that you have not entirely forgotten me," he said. "I had the pleasure of dining with you a short time ago at Professor Cowper's. You will doubtless remember our conversation?"
Burton welcomed his visitor civilly and motioned him to a seat. He was conscious of feeling a little disturbed. Mr. Bomford brought him once more into touch with memories which were ever assailing him by night and by day.
"I have taken the liberty of calling upon you, Mr. Burton," the newcomer continued, setting down his silk hat upon a corner of the table, and lifting his coat-tails preparatory to sinking into a chair, "because I believe that in the excitement of our conversation a few nights ago, we did not do adequate justice to the sentiments which—er—provoked our offer to you."
Mr. Bomford sat down with the air of a man who has spoken well. He was thoroughly pleased with his opening sentence.
"It did not occur to me," Burton replied, "that there was any possibility of misunderstanding anything you or Professor Cowper said. Still, it is very kind of you to come and see me."
Alfred, who was drawing in colored chalks at the other end of the room, rose up and approached his father.
"Would you like me to go into the other room, father?" he asked. "I can leave my work quite easily for a time, and I have several books there."
Mr. Bomford screwed an eyeglass into his eye and looked across at the child.
"What an extraordinarily—forgive my remark, Mr. Burton—but what an extraordinarily well-behaved child! Is it possible that this is your boy?"
Alfred turned his head and there was no doubt about the relationship. He, too, possessed the deep-set eyes with their strange, intense glow, the quivering mouth, the same sensitiveness of outline.
"Yes, this is my son," Burton admitted, quietly. "Go and shake hands with Mr. Bomford, Alfred."
The child crossed the room and held out his hand with grave self-possession.
"It is very kind of you to come and see father," he said. "I am afraid that sometimes he is very lonely here. I will go away and leave you to talk."
Mr. Bomford fumbled in his pocket.
"Dear me!" he exclaimed. "Dear me! Ah, here is a half-crown! You must buy some chocolates or something to-morrow, young man. Or a gun, eh? Can one buy a gun for half-a-crown?"
Alfred smiled at him.
"It is very kind of you, sir," he said slowly. "I do not care for chocolate or guns, but if my father would allow me to accept your present, I should like very much to buy a larger drawing block."
Mr. Bomford looked at the child and looked at his father.
"Buy anything you like," he murmured weakly,—"anything you like at all."
The child glanced towards his father. Burton nodded.
"Certainly you may keep the half-crown, dear," he assented. "It is one of the privileges of your age to accept presents. Now run along into the other room, and I will come in and fetch you presently."
The child held out his hand once more to Mr. Bomford.
"It is exceedingly kind of you to give me this, sir," he said. "I can assure you that the drawing block will be a great pleasure to me."
He withdrew with a little nod and a smile. Mr. Bomford watched him pass into the inner room, with his mouth open.
"God bless my soul, Burton!" he exclaimed. "What an extraordinary child!"
Burton laughed, a little hoarsely.
"A few weeks ago," he said, "that boy was running about the streets with greased hair, a butcher's curl, a soiled velveteen suit, a filthy lace collar, dirty hands, torn stockings, playing disreputable games with all the urchins of the neighborhood. He murdered the Queen's English every time he spoke, and spent his pennies on things you suck. His mother threw two of the beans I had procured with great difficulty for them both into the street. He picked one up and ate it—a wretched habit of his. You see the result."
Mr. Bomford sat quite still and breathed several times before he spoke.It was a sign with him of most intense emotion.
"Mr. Burton," he declared, "if this is true, that child is even a greater testimony to the efficacy of your—your beans, than you yourself."
"There is no doubt," Burton agreed, "that the change is even greater."
There was a knock at the door. Burton, with a word of excuse, crossed the room to open it. The postman stood there with a packet. It was his novel returned once more. He threw it on to a table in the corner and returned to his place.
"Mr. Burton," his visitor continued, "for the first time in my life—and I may say that I have been accustomed to public speaking and am considered to have a fair choice of words—for the first time in my life I confess that I find myself in trouble as to exactly how to express myself. I want to convince you. I am myself entirely and absolutely convinced as to the justice of the cause I plead. I want you to reconsider your decision of the other night."
Burton shook his head.
"I am afraid," he said, uneasily, "that that is not possible."
Mr. Bomford cleared his throat. He was only externally a fool.
"Mr. Burton," he declared, "you are an artist. Your child has the makings of a great artist. Have you no desire to travel? Have you no desire to see the famous picture galleries and cities of the Continent, cities which have been the birthplaces of the men whose works you and your son in days to come will regard with so much reverence?"
"I should like to travel very much indeed," Burton admitted.
"It is the opportunity to travel which we offer you," Mr. Bomford reminded him. "It is the opportunity to surround yourself with beautiful objects, the opportunity to make your life free from anxieties, a cultured phase of being during which, removed from all material cares, you can—er—develop yourself and the boy in any direction you choose."
Mr. Bomford stopped and coughed. Again he was pleased with himself.
"Money is only vulgar," he went on, "to vulgar minds. And remember this—that underlying the whole thing there is Truth. The beans which you and the boy have eaten do contain something of the miraculous. Those same constituents would be blended in the preparation which we shall offer to the public. Have you no faith in them? Why should you not believe it possible that the ingredients which have made so great a change in you and that child, may not influence for the better the whole world of your fellow-creatures? Omit for a moment the reflection that you yourself would benefit so much by the acceptance of my offer. Consider only your fellow human creatures. Don't you realize—can't you see that in acceding to our offer you will be acting the part of a philanthropist?"
"Mr. Bomford," Burton said, leaning a little forward, "in all your arguments you forget one thing. My stock of these beans is already perilously low. When they are gone, I remain no more what I hope and believe I am at the present moment. Once more I revert to the impossible: I become the auctioneer's clerk—a commonplace, material, vulgar, objectionable little bounder, whose doings and feelings I sometimes dimly remember. Can't you imagine what sort of use a person like that would make of wealth? In justice to him, in justice to the myself of the future, I cannot place such temptations in his way."
Mr. Bomford was staggered.
"I find it hard to follow you," he admitted. "You will not accept my offer because you are afraid that when the effect of these beans has worn off, you will misuse the wealth which will come to you—is that it?"
"That is the entire truth," Burton confessed.
"Have you asked yourself," Mr. Bomford demanded, impressively, "whether you have a right to treat your other self in this fashion? Your other self will assuredly resent it, if you retain your memory. Your other self would hate your present self for its short-sighted, quixotic folly. I tell you frankly that you have not the right to treat your coming self in this way. Consider! Wealth does not inevitably vulgarize. On the contrary, it takes you away from the necessity of associating with people calculated to depress and cramp your life. There are many points of view which I am sure you have not adequately considered. Take the case of our friend Professor Cowper, for instance. He is a poor man with a scientific hobby in which he is burning to indulge. Why deprive him of the opportunity? There is his daughter—"
"I will reconsider the matter," Burton interrupted, hastily. "I cannot say more than that."
Mr. Bomford signified his satisfaction.
"I am convinced," he said, "that you will come around to our way of thinking. I proceed now to the second reason of my visit to you this afternoon. Professor Cowper and his daughter are doing me the honor to dine with me to-night at the Milan. I beg that you will join us."
Burton sat for some time without reply. For a moment the strong wave of humanity which swept up from his heart and set his pulses leaping, set the music beating in the air, terrified him. Surely this could mean but one thing! He waited almost in agony for the thoughts which might fill his brain.
"Miss Cowper," Mr. Bomford continued, "has been much upset since your hasty departure from Leagate. She is conscious of some mistake—some foolish speech."
Burton drew a little sigh of relief. After all, what he had feared was not coming. He saw the flaw, he felt even now the revulsion of feeling with which her words had inspired him. Yet the other things remained. She was still wonderful. It was still she who was the presiding genius of that sentimental garden.
"You are very kind," he murmured.
"We shall expect you," Mr. Bomford declared, "at a quarter past eight this evening."
To Burton, who was in those days an epicure in sensations, there was something almost ecstatic in the pleasure of that evening. They dined at a little round table in the most desirable corner of the room—the professor and Edith, Mr. Bomford and himself. The music of one of the most famous orchestras in Europe alternately swelled and died away, always with the background of that steady hum of cheerful conversation. It was his first experience of a restaurant de luxe. He looked about him in amazed wonder. He had expected to find himself in a palace of gilt, to find the prevailing note of the place an unrestrained and inartistic gorgeousness. He found instead that the decorations everywhere were of spotless white, the whole effect one of cultivated and restful harmony. The glass and linen on the table were perfect. There was nowhere the slightest evidence of any ostentation. Within a few feet of him, separated only by that little space of tablecloth and a great bowl of pink roses, sat Edith, dressed as he had never seen her before, a most becoming flush upon her cheeks, a new and softer brilliancy in her eyes, which seemed always to be seeking his. They drank champagne, to the taste and effects of which he was as yet unaccustomed. Burton felt its inspiring effect even though he himself drank little.
The conversation was always interesting. The professor talked of Assyria, and there was no man who had had stranger experiences. He talked with the eloquence and fervor of a man who speaks of things which have become a passion with him; so vividly, indeed, that more than once he seemed to carry his listeners with him, back through the ages, back into actual touch with the life of thousands of years ago, which he described with such full and picturesque detail. Not at any time during the dinner was the slightest allusion made to that last heated interview which had taken place between the three men. Even when they sat out in the palm court afterwards, and smoked and listened to the band and watched the people, Mr. Bomford only distantly alluded to it.
"I want to ask you, Mr. Burton," he said, "what you think of your surroundings—of the restaurant and your neighbors on every side?"
"The restaurant is very beautiful," Burton admitted. "The whole place seems delightful. One can only judge of the people by their appearance. That, at any rate, is in their favor."
Mr. Bomford nodded approvingly.
"I will admit, Mr. Burton," he continued, leaning a little towards him, "that one of my objects in asking you to dine this evening, apart from the pleasure of your company, was to prove to you the truth of one of my remarks the other evening—that the expenditure of money need not necessarily be associated with vulgarity. This is a restaurant which only the rich could afford to patronize save occasionally, yet you see for yourself that the prominent note here is a subdued and artistic tastefulness. The days of loud colors and of the flamboyant life are past. Money to-day is the handmaiden to culture."
Exceedingly pleased with his speech, Mr. Bomford leaned back in his chair and lighted a half-crown cigar. Presently, without any visible co-operation on their part, a little scheme was carried into effect by the professor and Mr. Bomford. The latter rose and crossed to the other side of the room to speak to some friends. A few moments later he beckoned to the professor. Edith and Burton were alone. She drew a deep sigh of relief and turned towards him as though expecting him to say something. Burton, however, was silent. He had never seen her quite like this. She wore a plain white satin dress and a string of pearls about her neck, which he saw for the first time entirely exposed. The excitement of the evening had brought a delicate flush to her face; the blue in her eyes was more wonderful here, even, than out in the sunlight. Amid many toilettes of more complicated design, the exquisite and entire simplicity of her gown and hair and ornaments was delightful.
"You are quiet this evening," she whispered. "I wish I could know what you are thinking of all the time."
"There is nothing in my thoughts or in my heart," he answered, "which I would not tell you if I could. Evenings like this, other evenings which you and I have spent together in still more beautiful places, have been like little perfect epochs in an imperfect life. Yet all the time one is haunted. I am haunted here to-night, even, as I sit by your side. I move through life a condemned man. I know it for I have proved it. Before very long the man whom you know, who sits by your side at this moment, who is your slave, dear, must pass."
"You can never altogether change," she murmured.
His hands clasped the small silver box in his pocket.
"In a few months," he said hoarsely, "unless we can find the missing plant, I shall be again the common little clerk who came and peered over your hedge at you in the summer."
She smiled a little incredulously.
"Even when you tell me so," she insisted, "I cannot believe it."
He drew his chair closer to hers. He looked around him nervously, the horror was in his eyes.
"Since I saw you last," he continued, "I have been very nearly like it. I couldn't travel alone, I bought silly comic papers, I played nap with young men who talked of nothing but their 'shop' and their young ladies. I have been to a public-house, drunk beer, and shaken hands with the barmaid. I was even disappointed when one of them—a creature with false hair, a loud, rasping voice and painted lips—was not there. Just in time I took one of my beans and became myself again, but Edith, I have only two more. When they are gone there is an end of me. That is why I sit here by your side at this moment and feel myself a condemned man. I think that when I feel the change coming I shall throw myself over into the river. I could not bear the other life again!"
"Absurd!" she declared.
"If I believed," he went on, "that I could carry with me across that curious boundary enough of decency, enough of my present feelings, to keep us wholly apart, I would be happier. It is one of the terrors of my worst moments when I think that in the months or years to come I may again be tempted—no, not I, but Alfred Burton of Garden Green may be tempted—to look once more across the hedge for you."
She smiled reassuringly at him.
"You do not terrify me in the least. I shall ask you in to tea."
He groaned.
"My speech will be Cockney and my manners a little forward," he said, in a tone of misery. "If I see your piano I shall want to vamp."
"I think," she murmured, "that for the sake of the Alfred Burton who is sitting by my side to-night, I shall still be kind to you. Perhaps you will not need my sympathy, though. Perhaps you will adapt yourself wholly to your new life when the time comes."
He shook his head.
"There are cells in one's memory," he muttered. "I don't understand—I don't know how they get there—but don't you remember that time last summer when I was picnicking with my common friends? We were drinking beer out of a stone jug, we were singing vulgar songs, we were revelling in the silly puerilities of a bank holiday out of doors. And I saw your face and something came to me. I saw for a moment over the wall. Dear, I am very sure that if I go back there will be times when I shall see over the wall, and my heart will ache and the whole taste of life will be like dust between my teeth."
She leaned towards him.
"It is your fault if I say this," she whispered. "It is you yourself who have prepared the way. Why not make sure of riches? The world can give so much to the rich. You can buy education, manners, taste. Anything, surely, would be better than taking up the life of an auctioneer's clerk once more? With riches you can at least get away from the most oppressive forms of vulgarity."
"I wish I could believe it," he replied. "The poor man is, as a rule, natural. The rich man has the taste of other things on his palate; he has looked over the wrong wall, he apes what he sees in the wrong garden."
"Not always," she pleaded. "Don't you believe that something will remain of these splendid months of yours—some will power, some faint impulse towards the choicer ways of life? Oh, it really must be so!" she went on, more confidently. "I am sure of it. I think of you as you are now, how carefully you control even your emotions, how sensitive you always are in your speech, and I know that you could never revert entirely to those other days. You may slip back, and slip back a long way, but there would always be something to keep you from the depths."
Her eyes were glowing. Her fingers deliberately touched his for a moment.
"It is wonderful to hope that it may be so," he sighed. "Even as I sit here and remember that awful picnic party, I remember, too, that something drew me a little away from the others to gaze into your garden and at you. There was something, even then, which kept me from being with them while I looked, and I know that at that moment, at the moment I looked up and met your eyes, I know that there was no vulgar thought in my heart."
"Dear," she said, "with every word you make me the more inclined to persist. I honestly believe that father and Mr. Bomford are right. It is your duty. You owe it to yourself to accept their offer."
He sat for several minutes without speech.
"If I could only make you understand!" he went on at last. "Somehow, I feel as though it would be making almost a vulgar use of something which is to me divine. These strange little things which Mr. Bomford would have me barter for money, brought me out of the unclean world and showed me how beautiful life might be—showed me, indeed, what beauty really is. There is no religion has ever brought such joy to the heart of a man, nor any love, nor any of the great passions of the world have opened such gates as they have done for me. You can't imagine what the hideous life is like—the life of vulgar days, of ugly surroundings, the dull and ceaseless trudge side by side with the multitude across the sterile plain, without the power to raise one's eyes, without the power to stretch out one's arms and feel the throb of freedom in one's pulses. If I die to-morrow, I shall at least have lived for a little time, thanks to these. Can you wonder that I think of them with reverence? Yet you ask me to make use of one of them to help launch upon the world a patent food, something built upon the credulity of fools, something whose praises must be sung in blatant advertisements, desecrating the pages of magazines, gaping from the hoardings, thrust inside the chinks of human simplicity by the art of the advertising agent. Edith, it is a hard thing, this. Do try and realize how hard it is. If there be anything in the world divine, if there be anything sacred at all, anything to lift one from the common way, it is what you ask me to sacrifice."
"You are such a sentimentalist, dear," she whispered. "You need have no share in the commercial part of this. The money can simply keep you while you write, or help you to travel."
"It will lead that other fellow," he groaned, "into no end of mischief."
The professor and Mr. Bomford returned. They talked for a little time together and then the party broke up. As they waited for Edith to get her cloak, Burton spoke the few words which they were both longing to hear.
"Mr. Bomford," he announced, "and professor, I should like to see you to-morrow. I am going to think over this matter to-night once more. It is very possible that I may see my way clear to do as you ask."
"Mr. Burton, sir," the professor said, grasping his hand, "I congratulate you. I felt sure that your common sense would assert itself. Let me assure you of one thing, too. Indirectly you will be the cause of marvelous discoveries, enlightening discoveries, being made as to the source of some of that older civilization which still bewilders the student of prehistoric days."
Mr. Bomford had less to say but he was quite as emphatic.
"If you only think hard enough, Mr. Burton," he declared, "you can't make a mistake."
He saw them into the motor, Edith in a cloak of lace which made her seem like some dainty, fairylike creature as she stepped from the pavement into a corner of the landaulette. Afterwards, he walked with uplifted heart through the streets and back to his rooms. He let himself in with a mechanical turn of the key. On the threshold he stood still in sudden amazement. The lights were all turned on, the room was in rank disorder. Simmering upon the hearth were the remains of his novel; upset upon the table several pots of paint. Three chairs were lashed together with a piece of rope. On a fourth sat Alfred, cracking a home-made whip. His hands were covered with coal-dust, traces of which were smeared upon his cheeks. There were spots of ink all down his clothes, his eyes seemed somehow to have crept closer together. There were distinct signs of a tendency on the part of his hair to curl over a certain spot on his forehead. He looked at his father like a whipped hound but he said never a word.
"What on earth have you been doing, Alfred?" Burton faltered.
The boy dropped his whip and put his finger in his mouth. He was obviously on the point of howling.
"You left me here all alone," he said, in an aggrieved tone. "There was no one to play with, nothing to do. I want to go back to mother; I want Ned and Dick to play with. Don't want to stop here any longer."
He began to howl. Burton looked around once more at the scene of his desolation. He moved to the fireplace and gazed down at the charred remnants of his novel. The boy continued to howl.
It had been a dinner of celebration. The professor had ransacked his cellar and produced his best wine. He had drunk a good deal of it himself—so had Mr. Bomford. A third visitor, Mr. Horace Bunsome, a company promoter from the city, had been even more assiduous in his attentions to a particular brand of champagne.
Burton had been conscious of a sense of drifting. The more human side of him was paramount. The dinner was perfect; the long, low dining-room, with its bowls of flowers and quaint decorations, delightful; the wine and food the best of their sort. Edith, looking like an exquisite picture, was sitting by his side. After all, if the end of things were to come this way, what did it matter? She had no eyes for any one else, her fingers had touched his more than once. The complete joy of living was in his pulses. He, too, had yielded to the general spirit.
Edith left them late and reluctantly. Then the professor raised his glass. There was an unaccustomed color in his parchment-white cheeks. His spectacles were sitting at a new angle, his black tie had wandered from its usual precise place around to the side of his neck.
"Let us drink," he exclaimed, "to the new company! To the new Mind Food, to the new scientific diet of the coming century! Let us drink to ourselves, the pioneers of this wonderful discovery, the manufacturers and owners-to-be of the new food, the first of its kind created and designed to satisfy the moral appetite."
"We'll have a little of that in the prospectus," Mr. Horace Bunsome remarked, taking out his notebook. "It sounds mighty good, professor."
"It sounds good because it is true, sir," Mr. Cowper asserted, a little severely. "Your services, Mr. Bunsome, are necessary to us, but I beg that you will not confound the enterprise in which you will presently find yourself engaged, with any of the hazardous, will-o'-the-wisp undertakings which spring up day by day, they tell me, in the city, and which owe their very existence and such measure of success as they may achieve, to the credulity of fools. Let me impress upon you, Mr. Bunsome, that you are, on this occasion, associated with a genuine and marvelous discovery—the scientific discovery, sir, of the age. You are going to be one of those who will offer to the world a genuine—an absolutely genuine tonic to the moral system."
Mr. Bunsome nodded approvingly.
"The more I hear you talk," he declared, "the more I like the sound of it. People are tired of brain foods and nerve foods. A food for the moral self! Professor, you're a genius."
"I am nothing of the sort, sir," the professor answered. "My share in this is trifling. The discovery is the discovery of our friend here," he continued, indicating Burton. "The idea of exploiting it is the idea of Mr. Bomford. . . . My young friend Burton, you, at least, must rejoice with us to-night. You must rejoice, in your heart, that our wise counsels have prevailed. You must feel that you have done a great and a good action in sharing this inheritance of yours with millions of your fellow-creatures."
Burton leaned a little forward in his place.
"Professor," he said, "remember that there are only two small beans, each less than the size of a sixpence, which I have handed over to you. As to the qualities which they possess, there is no shadow of doubt about them for I myself am a proof. Yet you take one's breath away with your schemes. How could you, out of two beans, provide a food for millions?"
The professor smiled.
"Science will do it, my dear Mr. Burton," he replied, with some note of patronage in his tone, "science, the highways of which to you are an untrodden road. I myself am a chemist. I myself, before I felt the call of Assyria, have made discoveries not wholly unimportant. This afternoon I spent four hours in my laboratory with one of your beans. I tell you frankly that I have discovered constituents in that small article which absolutely stupefy me, qualities which no substance on earth that I know of, in the vegetable or mineral world, possesses. Yet within a week, the chemist whom I have engaged to come to my assistance and I will assuredly have resolved that little bean into a definite formula. When we have done that, the rest is easy. Its primary constituents will form the backbone of our new food. If we are only able to reproduce them in trifling quantities, then we must add a larger proportion of some harmless and negative substance. The matter is simple."
"No worry about that, that I can see," Mr. Bunsome remarked. "So long as we have this testimony of Mr. Burton's, and the professor's introduction and explanation, we don't really need the bean at all. We've only got to print his story, get hold of some tasteless sort of stuff that no one can exactly analyze, and the whole thing's done so far as we are concerned. Of course, whether it takes on or not with the public is always a bit of a risk, but the risk doesn't lie with us to control. It depends entirely upon the advertisements. If we are able to engage Rentoul, and raise enough money to give him a free hand for the posters as well as the literary matter, why then, I tell you, this moral food will turn out to be the greatest boom of the generation."
Mr. Cowper moved a little uneasily in his chair.
"Yours, Mr. Bunsome," he said, "is purely the commercial point of view. So far as Mr. Burton and I are concerned, and Mr. Bomford, too, you must please remember that we are profoundly and absolutely convinced of the almost miraculous properties of this preparation. Its romantic history is a thing we have thoroughly attested. Our only fear at the present moment is that too large a quantity of the constituents of the beans which Mr. Burton has handed over to me, may be found to be distilled from Oriental herbs brought by that old student from the East. However, of that in a few days' time we shall of course be able to speak more definitely."
Mr. Bunsome coughed.
"Anyway," he declared, "that isn't my show. My part is to get the particulars of this thing into shape, draft a prospectus, and engage Rentoul if we can raise the money. I presume Mr. Burton will have no objection to our using his photograph on the posters?"
Burton shivered.
"You must not think of such a thing!" he said, harshly.
Mr. Bunsome was disappointed.
"A picture of yourself as you were as an auctioneer's clerk," he remarked, thoughtfully,—"a little gay in the costume, perhaps, rakish-looking hat and tie, you know, and that sort of thing, leaning over the bar, say, of a public-house—and a picture of yourself as you are now, writing in a library one of those little articles of yours—the two together, now, one each side, would have a distinct and convincing effect."
Burton rose abruptly to his feet.
"These details," he said, "I must leave to Mr. Cowper. You have the beans. I have done my share."
The professor caught hold of his arm.
"Sit down, my dear fellow—sit down," he begged. "We have not finished our discussion. The whole subject is most engrossing. We cannot have you hurrying away. Mr. Bunsome's suggestion is, of course, hideously Philistine, but, after all, we want the world to know the truth."
"But the truth about me," Burton protested, "may not be the truth about this food. How do you know that you can reproduce the beans at all in an artificial manner?"
"Science, my young friend—science," the professor murmured. "I tell you that the problem is already nearly solved."
"Supposing you do solve it," Burton continued, "supposing you do produce a food which will have the same effect as the beans, do you realize what you are doing? You will create a revolution. You will break up life-long friendships, you will revolutionize business, you will swamp the divorce courts, you will destroy the whole fabric of social life for at least a generation. Truth is the most glorious thing which the brain of man ever conceived, but I myself have had some experience of the strange position one occupies who has come under its absolutely compelling influence. The world as it is run to-day could never exist for a week without its leaven of lies."
Mr. Bunsome looked mystified. The professor, however, inclined his head sympathetically.
"It is my intention," he remarked, "in drafting my final prescription, that the action of the food shall not be so violent. If the quantities are less strenuously mixed, the food, as you can surmise, will be so much the milder. A gentle preference for truth, a dawning appreciation of beauty, a gradual withdrawal from the grosser things of life—these may, perhaps, be conceived after a week's trial of the food. Then a regular course of it—say for six months or so—would build up these tendencies till they became a part of character. The change, as you see, would not be too sudden. That is my idea, Bomford. We have not heard much from you this evening. What do you think?"
"I agree with you entirely, professor," Mr. Bomford pronounced. "For many reasons it will be as well, I think, to render the food a little less violent in its effects."
Mr. Bunsome began to chuckle to himself. An imperfectly developed sense of humor was asserting itself.
"It's a funny idea!" he exclaimed. "The more one thinks of it, the funnier it becomes. Supposing for a moment—you all take it so seriously—supposing for a moment that the food were to turn out to really have in it some of these qualities, what a mess a few days of it would make of the Stock Exchange! It would mean chaos, sir!"
"It is our hope," the professor declared, sternly, "our profound hope, that this enterprise of ours will not only bring great fortunes to ourselves but will result in the moral elevation of the whole world. There are medicines—patent medicines, too—which have cured thousands of bodily diseases. Why should we consider ourselves too sanguine when we hope that ours, the first real attempt to minister to the physical side of morals, may be equally successful?"
Burton stole away. In the garden he found Edith. They sat together upon a seat and she allowed her hand to remain in his.
"I never knew father so wrapped up in anything as he is in this new scheme," she whispered. "He is even worse than Mr. Bomford."
Burton shivered a little as he leaned back and closed his eyes.
"It is a nightmare!" he groaned. "Have you seen all those advertisements of brain foods? The advertisement columns of our magazines and newspapers are full of them. Their announcements grin down upon us from every hoarding. Do you know that we are going to do the same thing? We are going to contribute our share to the defilement of journalism. We are going to make a similar appeal to the quack instincts of the credulous."