The weather this day--a week or so after the interview with Cyrus--was cloudy, damp and otherwise depressing. She felt, of course, gratification in the success of her mission at the hospital. Her thoughts, however, were not entirely rosy as she looked from the car window on this homeward journey, gazing absently on the sunless landscape. She had much to think about, and often, during this little journey from Worcester she tried vainly to escape from unwelcome memories. At the mention of a familiar name, however, these wandering thoughts were centered suddenly on the conversation of the two men in the seat behind her. "Alton, Cyrus Alton. Guess you've met him." "Yez, I thig zo. Kide of sleeby eyes, hasn'd he?" "Yep. His eyes are sleepy, but, gee whiz! He does things." "Whad thigs?" "Oh, anything--if it's impossible." "Didn'd he bake a lod of bunny all of a zudden?" "Bet your life he did! Made it while you wait." "How budge?" "God knows." "How did he do id?" "God knows that too:--He and Alton. You can hear anything. Some say a rich widow, others, a pirate's cave. Perhaps it's just a friendly tip from his Partner." "Who is his bardner?" "The Almighty." "You bead he is bious?" "Nixy not! He's a scientist, and science and piety don't seem to cuddle much. He has discovered--or his Big Partner has told him--some secret of electricity that is just the humpingest thing out of jail. It's going to revolutionize the whole human outfit; business, travel, transportation. As to little things like manufactures in peace and wholesale destruction in war, why, we've got to begin all over again. You just can't digest it. And it's so simple that you laugh when you think of it." "Doe! Really?" "Yep; that's no exaggeration." "Thad's inderesdig. I have heard vague rubers aboud id bud nothing like thad. Just whad is id?" "Just what is it. Well, that's an easy question to ask. When he blabs his secret then we'll all know. But he says it's so simple that it's sure to be discovered some day." "I spoze you doe him breddy well." "Yep, in a way. He orders his electric stuff through us. A year ago when he was so poor he used to foot it to save trolley fare the boss trusted him for twelve hundreds dollars' worth of radium." "Good for the boss! He was a zpord. Did he ever get his bunny bag?" "Twice over. Oh, Alton didn't forget it. He's as straight as a string." "Well, he bay be all ride in sub ways bud he busd be jusd aboud grazy to sdard on thad jourdy." "Oh, I dunno. He has done some big stunts already. And he's pretty level headed." "Yez, bud id seebs like suizide to be. How var away is Bars, eddyway?" "Oh, just a step. I believe the astronomers call it about forty-eight millions of miles." "Vorty-eight billions of biles? Whew!" "No, forty-eight millions--not billions." The Rose Cold tried to laugh. "Yez I doe id iz--but with thiz invernal drouble I gan'd prodounce by ebs." "Of course; beg your pardon."