hand lovingly upon the machine as though it were alive, and indeed so it
seemed to be, for into it he had put his finest ideals, his deepest
hopes for the development of man.

"A few months more of work," he cried. "And then it will be ready to
give to the world."

Someone came lightly up the stairs. A head appeared, then a body, then a
hearty voice: "May I come in?" it asked.

Mrs. Procter swung the door wide to Mr. Reynolds, neighbor across the
way. He entered with a little hesitation. He was a large man with a
heavy brick-colored face, yet with eyes that had preserved some spirit
of youth. Mr. Reynolds was as great an idealist as his friend, the
inventor, though his idealism gave out in totally different directions.
He read all sorts of books, but reacted to them with originality. His
imagination only grasped their meanings, not his intellect. He worked in
another town, several miles from Anchorville, in a large chair factory,
and several times a week in the evening he stood upon a soap box on a
street corner, and amused a mixed audience by his picturesque setting
forth of what he thought was wrong with the world; also what methods he
believed would, if employed, straighten out the tangles.

Since he spoke "straight from the shoulder," as he put it, touching
dramatically upon the hand of wealth as causing the tangles, he had
called down upon himself the wrath of the town's richest man, old John
Massey, owner of the Massey Steel Mills. Twice Mr. Massey had threatened
the eloquent and fearless orator with arrest, and twice for some unknown
reason he had refrained from carrying out his threat, and the
authorities of the town complacently allowed Mr. Reynolds to continue