"An hour in--Oh, come now, old fellow," Hardress interrupted, with a look which Lamson instantly interpreted as a query as to his sanity. "Don't you think you'd better turn in for a bit? You really do look ill; just as if something had shaken you up very badly. Is it anything to do with that infernal tin box?" he went on, pointing to it on the table. "Yes," said Lamson, pulling himself together with a struggle, and sitting up on the sofa. "I wish to heaven I hadn't got up just at that moment on the bridge and we'd left our unknown deceased to the mercy of the waves. But, even then, somebody else might have discovered it." "Discovered what? The corpse?" "Yes; and----Look here, Hardress, I've been horribly tempted--tempted, perhaps, as no other man ever was; but my father was a gentleman, and I'll do the straight thing. How would you like to be master of the world?" "Master of the--Oh, look here, Lamson, this won't do at all, you know. You're as pale as a ghost; your eyes are burning, and your hands are shaking. You must have got a touch of fever, or something of that sort. Take a dose of quinine and turn in. We'll be at Southampton in two or three hours, and then you can see a doctor." Lamson laughed. It was a laugh that wouldn't have done anybody much good to hear, and Hardress shivered a little as he heard it. "I see what you mean. You think I'm a bit off my head. To tell you the truth, I almost wish I were, or that this infernal thing were only a dream--nightmare, I should say." "What thing?" "This," replied Lamson, putting his hand into his hip-pocket and pulling out some crumpled sheets of paper. "You thought I was mad when I asked you if you'd like to be master of the world. When you've read that you'll see that you can be. They're what I found in that tin box. There's no name or address or any mark of identification on them, but they were written by a man, a Frenchman, who has discovered a means, as one might say, of soaking up all the electricity of the earth in one huge storage system, and then doling it out to the peoples of the earth like gas or water or electric light." "Great Scott, what a gorgeous idea!" exclaimed Hardress, jumping from his seat and holding out his hand for the papers. "Why do you want to get ill over a thing like that, man? Don't you see there are millions in it if it's true, and of course you'll come in on the ground-floor? Great Caesar's ghost! It'll be the very thing for old Vandel. The Morgan Steel Trust won't be in it with this." "I thought you'd say that," said Lamson. "That's the American blood talking in you. Now, I'll tell you candidly that I've only given you those papers from a sense of honour and friendship. I admit that my first impulse was to throw them out of the port-hole; and my second," he went on, after a little pause, "was to keep them to myself, and tell you some lie about the box being empty."