"The Bathtub Combine has us beat!" said Macnooder. "If we patented the Foot Regulator every bathtub in the country will have the spigot fastened in the middle." "Why in Sam Hill didn't you think of that?" said Snorky, turning indignantly on the inventor. He kicked at the offending tub, scowled at Skippy and deserted on the spot. "And this is the friend I'd have made a millionaire!" said Skippy to himself in the bitterness of his trial. "You see, Bo?" said Macnooder, descending from his pedestal, as he perceived how the revelation had crushed the younger imagination. "I see, Doc." "It's no use, is it?" "No,--damn 'em, they've got us beat!" "Now, old sport," said Macnooder kindly, "don't mope about it. Your ideas are all right and I'm here to keep you practical. Better luck next time, but be sure and come to me." "Thank you, Doc," said Skippy, through whose dimmed eyes the fatal bathtub seemed to advance like a juggernaut. He escaped and went dizzily across the Campus and sat on the steps of Memorial Hall, gazing out gloomily at the dotted recreation fields. The great Bedelle gymnasium, which but yesterday was outlined in splendor against the sky, was now cinders and dust, Fifth Avenue further off than Africa, and as for Lillian Russell-- "Looking all over for you, Skippy," said a familiar voice. Before him stood Toots Cortrelle. "Oh, it's you," he said heavily. "Are you flush? I thought if you were--that quarter you know--you said--" "I said I should remember," said Skippy, with a hollow laugh. There was just twenty cents in his pockets that an hour ago had been heavy with millions. He drew out two dimes and tendered them. "Here's the best I can do, Toots. I'll try to get that other nickel to you to-morrow." CHAPTER VIII WHEN FRIENDS PROVE FALSE COMMONPLACE minds are crushed by defeat; great imaginations rise to profit. Ten days after Skippy Bedelle had seen the gilded fabric of his future greatness collapse with the failure of the Foot Regulator to revolutionize the bathtub industry the spirit of invention had risen triumphantly from the ashes of first disillusionment. After all, there were other services to render to humanity, and the mind that at the age of fifteen could have reasoned so brilliantly in theory must inevitably express itself with profit to the race and to his own individual bank account.