"I think, my friend Dix," said Sypher, "you took the wrong turning in the Milky Way before you were born. You were destined for a more enlightened planet. If they won't pay thirteen pence halfpenny for Sypher's Cure, how can you expect them to pay millions for your inventions? That Cure--but I'm not going to talk about it. Mrs. Middlemist's orders. I'm here for a rest. What are these? Proofs? Writing a novel?" He held up the bundle with one of his kindly smiles and one of his swift glances at Septimus. "It's my book on guns." "Can I look?" "Certainly." Sypher straightened out the bundle--it was in page-proof--and read the title: "A Theoretical Treatise on the Construction of Guns of Large Caliber. By Septimus Dix, M.A." He looked through the pages. "This seems like sense, but there are text-books, aren't there, giving all this information?" "No," said Septimus modestly. "It begins where the text-books leave off. The guns I describe have never been cast." "Where on earth do you get your knowledge of artillery?" Septimus dreamed through the mists of memory. "A nurse I once had married a bombardier," said he. Wiggleswick entered with the haddock and other breakfast appurtenances, and while Septimus ate his morning meal Sypher smoked and talked and looked through the pages of the Treatise. The lamps lit and the curtains drawn, the room had a cosier appearance than by day. Sypher stretched himself comfortably before the fire. "I'm not in the way, am I?" "Good heavens, no!" said Septimus. "I was just thinking how pleasant it was. I've not had a man inside my rooms since I was up at Cambridge--and then they didn't come often, except to rag." "What did they do?" Septimus narrated the burnt umbrella episode and other social experiences. "So that when a man comes to see me who does not throw my things about, he is doubly welcome," he explained. "Besides," he added, after a drink of coffee, "we said something in Monte Carlo about being friends." "We did," said Sypher, "and I'm glad you've not forgotten it. I'm so much the Friend of Humanity in the bulk that I've somehow been careless as to the individual." "Have a drink," said Septimus, filling his after-breakfast pipe. The pistol shot brought Wiggleswick, who, in his turn, brought whiskey and soda, and the two friends finished the afternoon in great amity. Before taking his departure Sypher asked whether he might read through the proofs of the gun book at home. "I think I know enough of machinery and mathematics to understand what you're driving at, and I should like to examine these guns of yours. You think they are going to whip creation?" "They'll make warfare too dangerous to be carried on. At present, however, I'm more interested in my railway carriages." "Which will make railway traveling too dangerous to be carried on!" laughed Sypher, extending his hand. "Good-by."