that’ll help her. It will be lots of satisfaction. They can’t call her an old maid. ‘Better ’tis to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.’ I’ll give her some of the boodle. She isn’t bad looking. Wonder why nobody ever grabbed on to her. If I had enough to live well, I’d marry her myself and settle down.”

The Rev. Eusebius Williams, with ten dollars fee in his right pantaloons pocket, and the radiant Almira, did not look happier during the wedding ceremony than did Mr. Breckenridge Endicott.

It was seldom that Mr. Endicott was absent from the side of his wife during the next few days. Occasionally pleading urgent business, he left her to go down town with Mr. Tibbs, whom he was seeking to interest in a plan to extract gold from sea water, a plan upon which Mr. Tibbs looked with some favor, for as presented by Mr. Endicott, it was one of great feasibility and promised enormous profits. In the setting forth of the method of extraction, Mr. Endicott was much aided by his wife, who overhearing him in earnest consultation with Mr. Tibbs bounded in and demanded to know what it was all about. Mr. Endicott demurred, saying it was an abstruse matter which should not burden so poetical a mind as hers. But Mr. Tibbs set it forth to her briefly. Having in her youth made much of the sciences of chemistry and physics, to the great amaze and admiration of Mr. Endicott, she launched into a most lucid explication of the practicability of the plan, leaving Mr. Tibbs more than ever inclined to venture his thousands.

“By Jove, she’ll do, Mulvane. Why cut and run? Take her along. She is a splendid grafter,” said Mr. Endicott to himself, as he and his wife withdrew from the presence of Mr. Tibbs. “My dear,” he continued aloud, “I was overcome by respect for the way you aided me. You are indeed a jewel. I had never suspected you understood me, knew what I was, until you came in and explained that sucker trap. You are a most unexpected ally. You perceive clearly how the thing works?”

“Why, of course, Breckenridge. I have not studied science in vain, though I do not recall what part of the machine you call ‘sucker trap’. Doubtless the contrivance marked ‘converter,’ in the drawings. Of course I understood you, right from the first, a noble, noble man, and so romantic. But Brecky, dear, why let other people share in this invention? Why not make all the money ourselves and become million, millionaires? I shall build churches and libraries and support missionaries. Why let Mr. Tibbs, who is a somewhat gross person, enjoy any of the fruits of your genius?”

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