“Why, they are processes with oyster shells by which he makes a sort of concrete that can be used for flooring, and some other substance that is good for roofs.” Tom Lupton grew interested. “Are those the patents he got from your aunt?” he inquired. “I mean the ones his father got from her?” “I don’t know. What were those?” Mary Vanton had never heard the story, but Tom Lupton had, and he related how Keturah Smiley, later Keturah Hand, had bested Richard Hand, Sr. Mary Vanton heard it through and then exclaimed: “Wasn’t that like Aunt Keturah? I’m glad, though, that Dick is going to make something out of the patents.” “It seems almost as if you really had a stake in them,” commented Keeper Tom. “Your aunt gave them away, practically, if they are worth anywhere near what Dick seems to think they are.” “Oh, no; I have no right of any sort in them,” she disclaimed, quickly. “Aunt Keturah must have parted with them with the full consciousness of their possible value. She would never have realized anything from them nor would I. Besides, the greater part of their value has probably come as a result of the work Dick has done.” “I suppose he is married and has children,” said Tom, absently. Mary glanced at him with equal indifference as she responded carelessly: “No.” V Dick Hand at forty-two had, as has been said, a tremendous reputation and an equally tremendous dissatisfaction. The one had no perceptible relation to the other. Of the one the world was thoroughly aware, of the other it was not. His dissatisfaction was known to Richard Hand alone. There were times when it swayed him absolutely, When it “came over him,” and he could not get away from it. He could not have told you what it was, really; for sometimes he felt it to be one thing, sometimes another. Now it was an immense discontent with all he had done or was doing, now it was an unreasonable irritation with life itself. Everything, he found at such times, was worthless. One day, in a fit of absolute disgust, he went to a specialist. He had no expectation that the man could help him, but he had got where he must do something. He had expected to be shown into a darkened room where a fellow more or less dressed for a part would take his hand gravely, as if performing a rite, and then, retreating to the distance and becoming semi-invisible, would intone questions in a ceremonial voice while the conversation was written down on the wax tablets of a silently travelling phonograph. But the office was as unlike that as possible, and so was the specialist.