out to buy a pistol--its weight still hung in his overcoat pocket--and
he had reached this place of whose existence he had an hour ago not
dreamed. Each step which had led him had seemed a simple, inevitable
thing, for which he had apparently been responsible, but which he knew--
yes, somehow he KNEW--he had of his own volition neither planned nor
meant. Yet here he sat--a part of the lives of the beggar, the thief,
and the poor thing of the street. What did it mean?

"Tell me," he said to the thief, "how you came here."

By this time the young fellow had fed himself and looked less like a
wolf. It was to be seen now that he had blue-gray eyes which were
dreamy and young.

"I have always been inventing things," he said a little huskily. "I did
it when I was a child. I always seemed to see there might be a way of
doing a thing better--getting more power. When other boys were playing
games I was sitting in corners trying to build models out of wire and
string, and old boxes and tin cans. I often thought I saw the way to
things, but I was always too poor to get what was needed to work them
out. Twice I heard of men making great names and for tunes because they
had been able to finish what I could have finished if I had had a few
pounds. It used to drive me mad and break my heart." His hands clenched
themselves and his huskiness grew thicker. "There was a man," catching
his breath, "who leaped to the top of the ladder and set the whole world
talking and writing--and I had done the thing FIRST--I swear I had! It
was all clear in my brain, and I was half mad with joy over it, but I
could not afford to work it out. He could, so to the end of time it
will be HIS." He struck his fist upon his knee.