"Yes--and necessary. But a man of action must have under his brains another asset--_must_ have it, Billy. The one secure asset is a big capital. Money rules this world. Some men have been lucky enough to rise and stay risen, without money. But not a man of all the men who have been knocked out could have been dislodged if he had been armed and armored with money. My prodigality was my fatal mistake. I shan't make it again--if I get the chance. You don't know, Tetlow, how hard it is to get money when you are tumbling and must have it. I never dreamed what a factor it is in calamities of _every_ sort. It's _the_ factor." "I don't like to hear you talk that way, Norman," said Tetlow earnestly. "I've always most admired in you the fact that you weren't mercenary." "And I never shall be," said Norman, with the patient smile of a swift, keen mind at one that is slow and hard to make understand. "It isn't my nature. But, if I'm resurrected, I'll seem to be mercenary until I get a full suit of the only armor that's invulnerable in this world. Why, I built my fort like a fool. It was impregnable except for one thing--one obvious thing. It hadn't a supply of water. If I build again it'll be round a spring--an income big enough for my needs and beyond anybody's power to cut off." Tetlow showed that he was much cheered by Norman's revived interest in life. But he went away uneasy; for the last thing Norman said to him was: "Don't forget that address!" XV But it chanced that Norman met her in the street about an hour after Tetlow's call.