"But--but everybody calls you 'Andy' and--and just 'Symes' sounds so familiar. Why can't I call you 'Phidias?'" "Phidias! Do, by all means, call me Phidias. I dote on Phidias! I love the combination--Phidias Symes. Father was drunk when he named me." He slammed the door behind him, forgetting to explain that he was not returning for luncheon or dinner so, that evening, while Augusta wandered aimlessly through the rooms, both hungry and anxious yet afraid to venture into the big dining-room, Andy P. Symes was saying with impressive emphasis as he fumbled in a box of cabanas: "Big opportunities, I am convinced, seldom come more than once to a man." His guests listened to the trite axiom with the respect due one who has met and grappled successfully with his one great chance. His well-fed appearance, his genial, contented smile, gave an impression of prosperity even when his linen was frayed and his elbows glossy; now in the latest achievement of a good tailor it was difficult to conceive him as being anything less than a millionaire. "And this," Symes looked squarely in each eager eye in turn, "this, gentlemen, is such an opportunity." The timid voice of a man who had made a hundred thousand from a patent fly-trap broke the awed silence. "It sounds good." "_Sounds_ good! It _is_ good." Mr. Symes clenched his huge fist and emphasized the declaration with a blow upon the table which made the dishes rattle. "Think of it," he went on, "two hundred thousand acres that can be made to bloom like the rose. An earthly paradise of our own making." The flowery figures were borrowed from a railroad folder but Mr. Symes had grasped them with the avidity of true genius and made them his own. "And how?" The waiter starting away with a tray load of dishes stopped to learn. "By the mere introduction of water upon the most fertile soil in the world! Is there anything like it--a miracle worker!" Mr. Symes shut one eye and peered into an empty bottle. "And how can this be done?" He answered himself. "By the expenditure of a ridiculously small amount of money; the absurd sum of $250,000. And look at the returns!" By the intentness of their gaze it was evident that all were willing enough to look. Symes lowered his voice to a dramatic whisper and swept the air with his outspread fingers. "A clean million!" The man who made only six thousand a year selling plumbers' supplies, gulped. "But who's goin' to buy it?" It was the timid voice of the Fly-trap King. "_Buy it!_" The questioner withered before Symes's scorn. "Buy it? Why, the world is land-hungry--crying for land!--and water. But I've considered all that; I've arranged for it," Mr. Symes went on with a touch of impatience. "We'll colonize it. We'll import Russian Jews to raise sugar-beets for the sugar-beet factory which we will establish. They will buy it for $50 an acre cash or $60 an acre with 10 per cent. interest upon the deferred payments. It's very simple."