But that intuition which sometimes warns the unworldly minded, and that mulish obstinacy which some men have, made Holt stand out for a share of the profits, and unwillingly Kerrigan and his associate had to allow it. "It's a hold-up," they complained to each other bitterly, "but we can't do anything about it!" So Holt was admitted to the profits of his patent, and for a while he dreamed dreams of wealth untellable; a wealth that would enable him to send his motherless three-year-old daughter to boarding-school and college and leave him in peace to work, with all appliances to hand--_Stuttapparat_ and radium and everything--at the problem which had baffled scientific dreamers since the dawn of intelligence. "The model on a big scale," he figured, "would cost ten thousand dollars--" and on his visions went, unhampered, unselfish, unpractical. He wanted to benefit the world by his discovery--and to get a little applause, a little credit. I don't know how they do these things, but they do them, and they must do them skilfully, for they evade the law, the iron law which insists on justice for all men. Kerrigan laid his hand feelingly on Holt's shoulder. "I 'm sorry, old man," he said with that sincere stop in his voice. "We made a mistake. It's not practical." Holt had received many blows, and was nearly impervious to them. He smiled wistfully. "Perhaps I can do something," Kerrigan continued. "I might get a little for your rights from some one who will take a chance. I should like you to get something for it. I led you to believe so much in it--" They were very generous, for they knew there were millions ahead of them, so they gave Holt a thousand dollars, and he buckled to again at his grotesque machine. A few weeks later some well-intentioned Christian told him the truth and commented fulsomely on what a fool Holt was. The last blow was the fatal one. It split his heart in two. Methodically he made arrangements for his child to be brought up in a convent, and he left what money he had for the purpose. He took the train to New York and crossing on the ferry-boat he climbed to the upper deck. He sat huddled up in a corner, gray and shabby of clothes, gray and shabby of face, until the boat was half-way over. He stood up on the seat and jumped, and the noise his jump made was drowned in the clatter of the paddles. Tall, lank, oblivious, unpractical--your economist will tell you that the man was of no value to the community, and was better dead. And your religious person will tell you that the crime of suicide merits hell-fire. But somehow I feel that for these poor men with the light heads and the light bodies, and the heavy, heavy hearts, there is somewhere Understanding and Great Tenderness....