"For instance, you couldn't put the world back to the place where it could get along without refined oil, without steam and electric transportation, and the telephone, and a thousand other things which have made men rich--inventions which seemed little at first, but which were universal after a while. Oil, water, iron, wood, steel--we have to have those things. Cinch them and sell them. That's the way to get rich, my dear. Get an idea, get to it first, and cinch it for your own. Then sell it. Keep on selling it. Give 'em something they've got to have, after showing 'em they've got to have it. Teach 'em what they ought to have known without any teaching. Some men teach and others pay them for it. After that, all you've got to do is to take it away from them. When you've taken away enough, make 'em crawl--make 'em _admit_ that you were greater than they were. Then build your monument and make them keep on remembering you. After that--" "And after _that_, John?" she said gently. V He did not hear her. He sat staring, as though in the mirror of his own mind. At last he let his hand drop across the table. She dropped her own into his, timidly. "Listen, Laura," he went on. "I'll tell you a little of what I mean." "Yes, John, I'm sure you will." "What's the distinguishing thing about life to-day, my dear--the thing that makes it different from that of the past?" "Why, I don't know." "A great many don't know. They don't stop to _think_! That's why so many pass by the open door of success and never get inside. Listen, Laura. Wait a minute--don't interrupt me. _Speed_ is the thing to-day. Speed, speed, speed; and power! Don't you see it all around you, don't you feel it? Can't you almost smell it, touch it, taste it? It's on the street, in the house, in business, everywhere--we can't go fast enough. But we're going faster. We'll go twice as fast." "How do you know? What do you mean? Who told you, John?" "That's my business. That's my idea. That's my invention. That's how I'm going to get rich. "Laura, I'm going to make it possible to gear up our national life, to double its present speed," he went on savagely. "When they've got it, they'll think they always had it, and after that they all will always have to have it. I'll be there first. I'll cinch it, and I'll sell it. That's my idea. That's not luck. It's brains, brains, _brains_, Laura!" VI She leaned back in her chair, sighing. "Do you think I could have a silk dress, John?" she said at length, her mind overleaping vast intermediate details. "My God, woman!" "Could we go to the theaters--I've always wanted to so much. Could I go into the country once in a while, where things are green?" He made a despairing gesture at her inability to grasp the future. "We could travel--could we go over to Europe--could we take Grace there, John?" "As often as you liked!" "Could we have a new gate in the picket fence, if the landlord still refused?"