Andrew Provost turned to look with some astonishment at his nephew. He inspected him critically from the top of his glossy Homburg hat to the well-polished brown shoes which he wore. And the face finally drew all his attention. "Impossible!" he declared politely. "Joe on his beam ends! Joe in the dumps--never!" "True as possible, sir--I was desperate," repeated Joe, his face grave for that moment. "Well, well, perhaps so. I'm forgetting. I was young like you when I was down. Young fellows make light of such matters. It's as well, perhaps, or the world wouldn't go along half so easily. But I'd never have thought it, Joe. You never said a word to me; you look so jolly." No one would have denied the fact. Joe Gresson looked what he was, a handsome, jovial fellow of twenty-seven. Fair and tall, and broader than his uncle, he had deep-set eyes which gave to his smiling face an air of cleverness. And the young fellow was undoubtedly clever. An engineer by profession, he had graduated at Cambridge, had passed through the shops, the drawing office, and other departments of one of the biggest engineering concerns in England, and had finally struck out a line for himself. He had been experimenting for the past four years. "What's the good of being miserable because things don't go right, Uncle?" he said with a smile. "I've told you how I took up engineering. Well, I thought I had a good idea. I left the shops at Barrow and worked on my own. Thanks to the few thousands I possessed I was able to carry out some important experiments." "Ah, my boy! Well, you succeeded?" "Yes and no; I went so far with the work that I was sure that success was possible. Then there was an accident. The whole affair was wrecked, and I woke up to find myself without funds and in a terrible condition of despair." "On your beam ends, in fact--well, like me," said Mr. Andrew. "I'll tell you about myself; then you'll give your yarn. I'll have to hear what this work was. But my tale don't take long. Let's step up and down again and I'll give it to you. Let's see--yes, I was a fiery, unmanageable young idiot." "Never!" interjected Joe.