Frank was glad to lie thinking for a spell undisturbed. His companion fell into a profound, exhausted slumber. Mrs. Ismond retired, and the house was all quiet at last. Like a panorama all the varied events of the preceding twenty-four hours passed vividly through Frank’s mind. He felt greatly satisfied with the outcome of his visit to the city. Then Frank began to scan the future, his plans, his ambitions. He felt truly rich with his little money capital, the present work in hand, the mail order lists, the apple corer, and other things. “How sick that man is of his apple corer,” mused Frank. “There are over five thousand of the crude, unsatisfactory things in that big box down stairs. He had a good idea all right, but didn’t know how to apply it. He gave it--to--me--be--” There Frank drifted into a doze. It was strange, but he half-dreamed, half-thought out some wonderful transformation of the hardware man’s invention, and, all of a sudden, in a lightning flash, a great, surging idea swept through his brain with tremendous force. It lifted him out of his sleep half-dazed, he gave a jump from the bed to the floor. There he wavered, rubbing his eyes, and then irresistibly shouting out: “Eureka--I’ve found it!” CHAPTER XIII A GOOD START Frank did not go to sleep again, he couldn’t. As he lay there, it seemed to him as though every nerve in his body was wide awake and on a terrific tension. Frank had heard of some of the great inventions of the world discovered in a dream. Had he, too, in a dream, or a half-waking doze, had the same experience. “It came like a flash,” he reflected. “It’s plain as day now. The apple corer improved, remodeled, in perfect working order and a success. Oh, I simply can’t lie here.” Frank wriggled and tossed restlessly. Then, when he was certain that Markham was asleep again, he slipped quietly out of bed, put on part of his clothes and glided noiselessly downstairs. Frank softly closed the store door communicating with the hallway. He lit a lamp and went over to a counter containing the great heap of apple corers. He selected one, got a sheet of tin and a pair of stovepipe shears, and became engrossed in cutting out and forming cones, funnels and all kinds of odd-shaped contrivances. For fully two hours Frank was working at his task. He seemed to be supplying the crude apple corer with an inner sheath, to which he had supplied a small three-bladed device. He turned it about, altered it, worked over it, and a broad smile of satisfaction stole across his face as he progressed. “Frank, this is not sleeping.” Frank looked up from his task, quite startled, to find his mother standing a few feet away, watching him. “I know it isn’t, mother,” he responded gaily. “It’s work, good work, too, so it couldn’t wait.” “But, Frank--”