He wandered to the window and looked out at the sunlit garden. And as he did so there came into his range of vision the sturdy figure of his guest, Mr. Molloy, and for the first time that morning Lester Carmody seemed to hear, beating faintly in the distance, the wings of the blue bird. In a world containing anybody as rich-looking as Thomas G. Molloy there was surely still hope. Ronald Fish's prediction that Hugo's uncle would appreciate a visit from so solid a citizen of the United States as Mr. Molloy had been fulfilled to the letter. Mr. Carmody had welcomed his guest with open arms. The more rich men he could gather about him, the better he was pleased, for he was a man of vision, and had quite a number of schemes in his mind for which he was anxious to obtain financial support. He decided to go and have a chat with Mr. Molloy. On a morning like this, with all Nature smiling, an American millionaire might well feel just in the mood to put up a few hundred thousand dollars for something. For July had come in on golden wings, and the weather now was the kind of weather to make a poet sing, a lover love, and a Scotch business man subscribe largely to companies formed for the purpose of manufacturing diamonds out of coal tar. On such a morning, felt Mr. Carmody, anybody ought to be willing to put up any sum for anything. IV Nature continued to smile for about another three and a quarter minutes, and then, as far as Mr. Carmody was concerned, the sun went out. With a genial heartiness, which gashed him like a knife, the plutocratic Mr. Molloy declined to invest even a portion of his millions in a new golf course, a cinema de luxe to be established in Rudge High Street, or any of the four other schemes which his host presented to his notice. "No, sir," said Mr. Molloy. "I'm mighty sorry I can't meet you in any way, but the fact is I'm all fixed up in Oil. Oil's my dish. I began in Oil and I'll end in Oil. I wouldn't be happy outside of Oil." "Oh?" said Mr. Carmody, regarding this Human Sardine with as little open hostility and dislike as he could manage on the spur of the moment. "Yes, sir," proceeded Mr. Molloy, still in lyrical vein, "I put my first thousand into Oil and I'll put my last thousand into Oil. Oil's been a good friend to me. There's money in Oil." "There is money," urged Mr. Carmody, "in a cinema in Rudge High Street." "Not the money there is in Oil." "You are a stranger here," went on Mr. Carmody patiently, "so you have no doubt got a mistaken idea of the potentialities of Rudge. Rudge, you must remember, is a centre. Small though it is, never forget that it lies just off the main road in the heart of a prosperous county. Worcester is only seven miles away, Birmingham only eighteen. People would come in their motors...." "I'm not stopping them," said Mr. Molloy generously. "All I'm saying is that my money stays in little old Oil."