In the penumbra of smoke, and the malignant light of an ill trimmed lamp, the Great Idea was to be evolved. What consequences hung on the Great Idea! The peace of families insured, at a trifling premium. Innocence rescued. The defeat of the subtlest criminal designers: undreamed of benefits to natural science! But I anticipate. We return to the conversation in the Ryder Street den. 'It is a case of emigration or the workhouse,' said Logan. 'Emigration! What can you or I do in the Colonies? They provide even their own ushers. My only available assets, a little Greek and less Latin, are drugs in the Melbourne market,' answered Merton; 'they breed their own dominies. Protection!' 'In America they might pay for lessons in the English accent . . . ' said Logan. 'But not,' said Merton, 'in the Scotch, which is yours; oh distant cousin of a marquis! Consequently by rich American lady pupils "you are not one to be desired."' 'Tommy, you are impertinent,' said Logan. 'Oh, hang it, where is there an opening, a demand, for the broken, the stoney broke? A man cannot live by casual paragraphs alone.' 'And these generally reckoned "too high-toned for our readers,"' said Merton. 'If I could get the secretaryship of a golf club!' Logan sighed. 'If you could get the Chancellorship of the Exchequer! I reckon that there are two million applicants for secretaryships of golf clubs.' 'Or a land agency,' Logan murmured. 'Oh, be practical!' cried Merton. 'Be inventive! Be modern! Be up to date! Think of something _new_! Think of a felt want, as the Covenanting divine calls it: a real public need, hitherto but dimly present, and quite a demand without a supply.' 'But that means thousands in advertisements,' said Logan, 'even if we ran a hair-restorer. The ground bait is too expensive. I say, I once knew a fellow who ground-baited for salmon with potted shrimps.' 'Make a paragraph on him then,' said Merton. 'But results proved that there was no felt want of potted shrimps--or not of a fly to follow.' 'Your collaboration in the search, the hunt for money, the quest, consists merely in irrelevancies and objections,' growled Merton, lighting a cigarette. 'Lucky devil, Peter Nevison. Meets an heiress on a Channel boat, with 4,000_l_. a year; and there he is.' Logan basked in the reflected sunshine. 'Cut by her people, though--and other people. I could not have faced the row with her people,' said Merton musingly. 'I don't wonder they moved heaven and earth, and her uncle, the bishop, to stop it. Not eligible, Peter was not, however you took him,' Logan reflected. 'Took too much of this,' he pointed to the heraldic flask. 'Well, _she_ took him. It is not much that parents, still less guardians, can do now, when a girl's mind is made up.' 'The emancipation of woman is the opportunity of the indigent male struggler. Women have their way,' Logan reflected.