"Mr. Brief," said the Idiot the other morning as the family of Mrs. Smithers-Pedagog gathered at the breakfast table, "don't you want to be let in on the ground floor of a sure thing?" "I do if there's no cellar under it to fall into when the bottom drops out," smiled Mr. Brief. "What's up? You going into partnership with Mr. Rockefeller?" "No," said the Idiot. "There isn't any money in that." "What?" cried the Bibliomaniac. "No money in a partnership with Rockefeller?" "Not a cent," said the Idiot. "After paying Mr. Rockefeller his dividend of 105 per cent. of the gross receipts and deducting expenses from what's left, you'd find you owed him money. My scheme is to start an entirely new business--one that's never been thought of before apparently--incorporate it at $100,000, of which I am to receive $51,000 in stock for the idea, $24,000 worth of shares to go to Mr. Brief for legal services and the balance to be put on the market at 45." "That sounds rich," said Mr. Brief. "I might devote an hour of my time to your scheme some rainy Sunday afternoon when there is nothing else to do, for that amount of stock, provided, of course, your scheme has no State's Prison string tied to it." "There isn't even a county jail at the end of it," observed the Idiot. "It's clean, clear and straight. It will fill a long felt want, and, as I see it, ought to pay fifty percent dividends the first year. They say figures don't lie, and I am in possession of some that tell me I've got a bonanza in my University Intelligence Office Company." "The title sounds respectable," said Mr. Whitechoker. "What is it, Mr. Idiot--a sort of University Settlement Scheme?" "Well--yes," said the Idiot. "It is designed to get University graduates settled, if you can call that a University Settlement Scheme. To put it briefly, it's an Intelligence Office for College graduates where they may go for the purpose of getting a job, just as our cooks, and butlers and valets and the rest do. If there's money in securing a place at good wages for the ladies who burn our steaks and promote indigestion for us, and for the gentlemen who keep our trousers pressed and wear out our linen, I don't see why there wouldn't be money in an institution which did the same thing for the struggling young bachelor of arts who is thrown out of the arms of Alma Mater on to the hands of a cold and unappreciative world." "At last!" cried the Doctor. "At last I find sanity in one of your suggestions. That idea of yours, Mr. Idiot, is worthy of a genius. I have a nephew just out of college and what on earth to do with him nobody in the family can imagine. He doesn't seem to be good for anything except sitting around and letting his hair grow long." "That isn't much of a profession, is it," said the Idiot. "What does he want to do?"