“Ah! that’s just like you, if you will forgive my saying so. You take any amount of trouble to invent and perfect a thing, but when it comes to making use of it, then you forget,” and with a little gesture of impatience the Colonel turned aside to light a match from a box which he had found in the pocket of his cape. “I am sorry,” said Morris, with a sigh, “but I am afraid it is true. When one’s mind is very fully occupied with one thing——” and he broke off. “Ah! that’s it, Morris, that’s it,” said the Colonel, seating himself upon a garden chair; “this hobby-horse of yours is carrying you—to the devil, and your family with you. I don’t want to be rough, but it is time that I spoke plain. Let’s see, how long is it since you left the London firm?” “Nine years this autumn,” answered Morris, setting his mouth a little, for he knew what was coming. The port drunk after claret had upset his father’s digestion and ruffled his temper. This meant that to him—Morris—Fate had appointed a lecture. “Nine years, nine wasted years, idled and dreamt away in a village upon the eastern coast. It is a large slice out of a man’s life, my boy. By the time that I was your age I had done a good deal,” said his father, meditatively. When he meant to be disagreeable it was the Colonel’s custom to become reflective. “I can’t admit that,” answered Morris, in his light, quick voice—“I mean I can’t admit that my time has either been idled away or wasted. On the contrary, father, I have worked very hard, as I did at college, and as I have always done, with results which, without boasting, I may fairly call glorious—yes, glorious—for when they are perfected they will change the methods of communication throughout the whole world.” As he spoke, forgetting the sharp vexation of the moment, his face was irradiated with light—like some evening cloud on which the sun strikes suddenly. Watching him out of the corner of his eye, even in that low moonlight, his father saw those fires of enthusiasm shine and die upon his son’s face, and the sight vexed him. Enthusiasm, as he conceived, perhaps with justice, had been the ruin of Morris. Ceasing to be reflective, his tone became cruel. “Do you really think, Morris, that the world wishes to have its methods of communication revolutionised? Aren’t there enough telephones and phonograms and aerial telegraphs already? It seems to me that you merely wish to add a new terror to existence. However, there is no need to pursue an academical discussion, since this wretched machine of yours, on which you have wasted so much time, appears to be a miserable failure.”