Show alae ga G W a NN K so 0 A novel by Iffe deairy viry liU Kit chell eliell webster copyright ty by the dobbs bobbs merrall co service bet vice SYNOPSIS acting in perfectly rood good faith in an efort ailt I 1 to did all I a neighbor ruth nh I 1 in business way edward Ilat Iatter teron Bon cas cannier or of the ch I 1 cago agency of a life insurance company 1 in wrongly F pecked bv his wita wife of fidelity her practical all itte it lion in a lett litter r fro from m a 41 a u miner resort un bf him I 1 lor or business and lie he taken a short vacation Patter pattersons sons la Is a idak las ing of ct responsibility on hla his return from ills him vac vacation aaion he la Is deeply wounded hi by his daughter edith hesitatingly telling mm him that his hl personal pr onal belongings were la in the oom having hern removed from tb room gorn which had bad be been ii his it s and ad hi his alu afo th bedroom patterson Fatte raon accepts the situation a proof or of hix hi lifes belief in his guilt got th 17 year old 1 Is worried over the of her parents leaving little tnora or thin ban a dim comprehension of 0 the ilia at fair CHAPTER II 11 continued 1 3 for a long ion time after that mother say anything she was sunk down ever so deep in her own thoughts it until edith remarked that she guessed she might as well get up and had swung her legs out of the bed by way of carrying out this purpose that her ter mother spoke im sorry youve been thinking things like that we arent very ery happy liap just now your father and I 1 I 1 cant tell you why nut but I 1 cant bear to have you made unhappy about it dear I 1 realize that you were I 1 dont want you to side with me against him or to think unkind things about him if I 1 have made you do that I 1 been fair to him it will work out somehow I 1 suppose until it does docs I 1 1 I want you to be fond of us both and not go on worrying about something you cant possibly understand run along now dear and dress and go down and have brenlin brcak ast st with him hut but stop and give me a kiss als 3 first 11 mother dother called her back into the room just before the girl was dressed theres something id like you to do edith see if dad wont go with you to the matinee instead of me I 1 dont know whether hell think lie he can get away from the ollice or not hut but it if lie he can I 1 wish lie he would I 1 really moan mean it dear ive ie got a committee meeting this afternoon that I 1 little hate to miss anyhow 11 dad had agreed after a blink of surprise find and not much more than a minute of consideration to cut business for the afternoon and take her to the show ile he lad had been genuinely pleased by the proposal and all the more so apparently because it involved playing truant lie ite was waiting for her in the station ile he blinked at her as she came up to him until she got quite near he said he realized who she was that was the polo coat of course and the chrysanthemums which some of the girls at school remembered her birthday had given her well take a taxi over to the theater he remarked tills this Is going to be a real party its a long time since ive taken a pretty girl to a show edith had been to tile the theater numerous times but this was her first experience of being a pretty girl getting taken to a show and she got a real thrill out of it for that proved to be no mere idle compliment of dads lie ile act parental at nil all along in the first act as soon as things began to get funny and exciting they found each others hands and kept them clasped through most of the play for convenience in communicating their special moments of enjoyment of course the curtain had to come down at last dad helped her into her polo coat and slipped his hand through lier her arm as they walked up the aisle while the orchestra played the people out which somehow kept the feell alive a little longer but at last they were out on the sidewalk and it teemed seemed that the inevitable end had find come A faint half balf pleasurable melancholy invaded her spirit and colored lier her voice ns as she said we may as well walk over to the station weve got lots of time for the alve eighteen really cally Il she hinting A cab lad had swooped down invitingly to the curb 1 before them and site she had felt her father who still had hold of her arm hesitate otherwise she have said eald a word no lie said with sudden resolution well finish this thing oi ait oit properly hop in and then amazingly she ehe heard him tell the chauffeur to drive not to the north western station but to the street number of their home in lakeside 1 11 I think she told film deep in the wonder of it that this hns has been just about the most perfect time ive ever had bad ills only answer to that was to ond her ber hand and squeeze it they went back over the play once more 1 I dont suppose she admitted that it could have happened really no he assented what a play like that Is trying to do la Is to make stople forget for a while what can really happen were all hungry you see BOP for adventure for something left out of our lives and that sort of play gives it to us its like ime a brenni only better 1 re grownup grown up people like that awo blied almost said old instead of ti ill up rp but a sense quite new to fj t lad dad think of himself as uld old awoke in time to make the substitution possible 1 I think tl ink more like tint that than young boung people he sold said reflectively you see sec anything my may happen when youre ou re young anyhow its possible to believe that it will dut but when youre forty six years old you know it wont i I 1 know I 1 will vill never be rich nor conspicuously successful any more than ill find a bai bag of pearls or a treasure hot box of pieces of eight behind the wainscoting in the library ill 1 dont see she argued why something wonderful happen to you ou just as well as it can to anyone else i because broadly speaking he told her things dont happen to anybody life like that really the not next thin thing reilly really grows out of the one happening now so ho tint that a man like me chos ayed two thirds of its his life can tell pretty well what tile the list last third of it Is going to be even it if lies wrecked by some fault or some disastrous mistake be ible to r ec I 1 suppose if you ou looked bacic ln it was the sort of mistake that he would make when lie he got tilt the chance they tall talk such a lot during the rest of the ride but there was no nothing thing uneasy aloit the silences they were awfully close somehow when the tel pulled up before their house the girl on fill an impulse slipped iler her arm aim around her hei fathers s neck an and d kissed kissed jilin him thanks lad she said ive had a most wonderful time CHAPTER III the optimist it was at this oils point tint that james mariner Nar filer came into edwards Edw aids life there was nothing extraordinary about the alie man or his errand the I 1 he grist of edwards jot job wis was dealing dealan with people like him hearing their explanations e pla nations lons listening with wilh an air of sympathy to the tale of their troubles discounting their hopes and finally seeing to it thit that the great insurance companas compi comp nys anys rights were guarded to the last penny james marinero mariners Ma Ala case was one of the commonest sort years ago when lied been temporarily prosperous ious and believed lie he was going to ile be rich lied hed taken out a big life insurance policy the riches materialized and after pa paying ing a few premiums hed let tile policy lapse hed come upon it the other lay dai while looking over some old papers in ills his bo box and he wanted to realize on it it must be worth he thought at leist least six sl thousand dollars doll irs anyhow six thousand was what lie he wanted edward felt sure again from long iong experience that the cash surrender value of the alie policy would prove to be nothing like that amount also before the interview had lasted five minutes lie saw that despair had fortified mariner in whatever belief he had tint that he could get his six thousand or anywhere near that ile he evaded corn ing down to facts and figures he wanted to put off the moment of disillusionment illusion ment as long as he could lie ile wanted to tell his story first the story could have no possible bearing on the case you had only to look it up in a little well worn book of tables to know to a cent how much mariner was entitled to be paid for ills his policy neither the urgency of lils his needs nor the brilliancy of his ex e had any relevancy in the matter at all yet it was out of something more moie than mere tolerant good nature that hdward edward let the man imn tell tits his story lie ile know wily why he did lie told himself bitterly as he sit sat hick back to listen with only half his mind at first that his own derpera despera alon ills his sense of failure fil lure ills his lacerated self bolf esteem was finding momentary rj comfort in his visitors appeal it long though before lie he forgot to think about himself when mariner beala telling what lie he wanted the money for a change came over him the stigmata of failure faded out despite the gray grav streaks lit in his hair an and the lines in ills his lean race face there wits was something about him that give gave edward nn an impression of youth louth ile he wanted something tremendous and it was something that lip siv saw almost within ills roach yet et his manner was not that of a visionary ile he had not forgotten how to smile it appeared lie was an inventor ills his most important invention had been a carburetor for automobiles it should have made him a very rich man for the principle of it had proved to he be sound and was now DOW in almost versal use but lie he ila had got involved disastrously in litigation you laid had to have millions behind you iou to get any where with that and he hall had had no backing at all 1 I wondered wandered in the wilderness a while he smiled reflectively as lie he said that 11 trying my hand at all sorts of things the less I 1 knew about them the better they looked rut but iwa I 1 inked iced up at last and want bink back to my own field ive invented a device for giving a motor the sort of mixture it needs a rich or lean auto matic tillY lie he broke bi oke oil oft for another smile it likely of course humanly speaking that the thing Is as rood good as it looks to me the man with one idea gets to be a fanatic about it but I 1 do know this as solid scientific matter of fact if the things halt half as good as it looks to me or even a quarter as good its revolutionary 1 I dont base that statement on theory but on experience im manufacturing fac turing the thing in a small way and selling it and it works mr pai patterson it does docs the business here I 1 perhaps like to look at it ile he plunged ills his hand into one of the bulging pockets of his overcoat over overcoat find pulled out it a small piece ot of apparatus about the size of an apple made of aluminum mariner with a twist of the wrist took it apart the thing that does the business ile he pointed out a coiled up ribbon of whitish metal when its cold when the motor la is cold its coiled tightly as you see it now ind and serves as a choke to the air supply makes your 3 our mixture rich when it gets ft arm as the motor does it opens up lip and lets in the Y fk he struck a match and held it near the tae coll edward astonished saw it open up air look here lie ile struck a match and held it near the coll coil edward astonished for hed never heard beard of a metal so sensitive to heat that it would act like this saw it open up just as the inventor said ile he ask about the compost composition of the metal but assumed it must be a profound secret well very interesting he said 1 I certainly wish you success it will succeed all right theres no question about that but whether I 1 succeed with it Is a question of money you see im d d by lack of capital its enough to make a man turn bolshevik to see tile the money lying around in the hands of people who dont know what to do with it and this thing wants its got to have it theres an enor enormous profit in it at five dollars if I 1 can manufacture it economically of course my costs just now are out of all reason they wont come down until I 1 can get into volume production and discount my hills bills I 1 dont need much to put the thing on its feet its a joke how little I 1 need six thousand but unless I 1 can get it oil oh of course I 1 will but I 1 know just vi where here to turn until I 1 came upon this insurance policy ill either borrow the money on it and give you my note or I 1 can turn it in outright if you prefer all the buoyancy and confidence that lind marked his manner while he talked about his ahli invention was gone now ile he was again the shabby necessitous failure he had looked when alien lie took his seat beside edwards desk edwards heart stink sank well lie he said trying to speak cheerfully lets come down to figures its just a question of arithmetic now you know it turned out just about as hed guessed the policy was wai worth a little over fourteen hundred dollars lie he wrote it on a slip of paper and slid it across the desk to mariner it so much a as s you ou hoped he remarked but still its a tidy little sum it douht to help mariner rend read the figures without reaching to pick up the slip they were written on lie ile move nt at all lie looked ns as if he move all tile he vital force seemed to have gone out of him ile he spoke in a daze it wont do me any good im done for if I 1 cant get more than that 1 I I 1 tell you that story etory for nothing lie went on after another silence 1 I told it so BO that I 1 could get something besides the cut and dried treatment ment I 1 know that a big biff insurance company like this lias has its rules and regulations but I 1 know that a man in your our position if he wants to I 1 0 do it can find some rule that will justify him in dealing dc illig with a special ease case tills Is a special case you cint cant help bell seeing tint that if you lont dont see sec it come down to ray my factory take ake a ride in III iny mv car out here drive it yourself mv lily G d ninn you iou dont think im going to drop tills this bowl after three ye veirs ars when nil it wants ft ant Is one more push to put it over the top of the hill you wont turn tile me down without taking at least a look will you vou A t queer tiling thing happened to edward lie HP begun began explaining as hed explained a hundred bundled times before tait the essence of the Ins insurance business was tint that it recognize exceptions to rules neither the merits 0 of f 1 marinero mariners Ma device nor the urgency of tits his needs entered into tile the case nt fit all ile he could am have e fourteen hundred and odd dollars if lie he n wanted anted it and that was all it was not surprising g that a stricken look came into mariner Ma s wistful brown eyes eves edward was mas used to seeing apo lit pie look like that the astonishing tiling thing was that lie he heard himself adding its as the man leaned forward to rise from tits his chair Illo however wever ill turn the thin tiling over in n my mv mind and it if ti lie feres res dm tiny thing more moie that can be done A sudden blaze blare of hope in the inventors face stopped him short after a moments piuse pause lie he added irritably youre not to build on alint probably I 1 have said it hut but ill cill call you sou tonight or tomorrow morning edwards job lind never seemed so barren or so newly nearly unendurable as it seemed today lie felt lie ha was an automaton lie he wondered fantastically whether it would be possible to build nn an actual automaton out of cogs and levers some sort of super adding machine that could take tits his jot job away from him do everything that he did lie ile gave the notion a further twist of irony there was no danger it w would |