The Red Book Magazine/Volume 37/Number 3/The Fury of the Sheep

by Henry C. Rowland

THE FURY
OF THE
SHEEP

by

HENRY C. ROWLAND

PAUL REVEUR could not himself have told which of the two great conflicting passions of his life was the stronger, his love of his four children or the hatred he had come to feel for his two employers, at John and David Force.

Other emotions running through the warp and woof of his daily life were insignificant to Paul Reveur in comparison, like the design of the wall-paper in his room, or what he ate and wore. Even his emotion for his wife—now become a sort of smoldering resentment, with hot and cold waves of anger and indifference—did not matter much. A part of his work was tremendously important, but in a different way, like his bad health, which was the result of an explosion in the plant that had left him semi-invalid. His wife Florence, still young and pretty, was not a success as a mother; she was kindly but improvident, luxurious, neglectful and unintelligent—the sort of mother to hire an automobile and take the children for a drive with holes in their stockings and shabby clothes.

Paul's two great passions were in danger of becoming an obsession, because they were retroactive. He could not pass through his children's rooms and brush their little faces with his lips without a pang of hatred for his employers. And he could not go into the private office for a consultation with his employers without a gust of compassionate love for the helpless innocents whom he adored and who were being stifled by the greed and avarice of the pair. It did not help him much to know that John hated David, and David hated John, almost as bitterly as he, Reveur, hated them both. But all three of them were bound together by mutual interest. The partners needed each other for their joint gain, and Paul was quite aware that they were perhaps the only two men in the world to appreciate his own unusual talents and who would be willing to pay him even a quarter of what he was actually worth as an expert chemist.

But this was not all. Outside his duties in the plant, which were light, Paul had worked at his invention, a new process for extracting petroleum from shale: and he had succeeded in convincing John Force that there were millions in it. Paul had tried vainly to interest others and was now faced with the maddening necessity of further enriching this man whom he detested—while he gained a miserable amount of profit for himself. His thriftless and, as he thought, brainless wife was incapable of maintaining her household and children on Paul's small salary They were in debt, the children poorly clad and undernourished, with the prospect of a steaming summer in their dingy home. Paul knew his own health to be precarious, and the thought of what must happen to his little ones in the event of his collapse, drove him to desperation.

He felt that he had no time to lose. The bitter irony of the situation lay in the fact that the man he most hated of all men should be the only one whom he had been able to inspire with confidence in himself and his process. Paul knew that both of the brothers held him personally in contempt as a poor worm upon whom they might tread with impunity, but there was this difference between them: David, while acknowledging Paul's usefulness in the plant, scoffed at his invention, refused to listen to his claims; whereas John, more astute, believed in his heart that there was actually a brilliant mind under the straggling sandy hair, and that the hot glow which shone at times through the big, tired eyes of the scientist was kindled by the divine fire of genius.

Knowing that Paul had not the strength to fight, and that he was not in a position to refuse whatever might be offered him John had drawn up a hard contract with his employee, by the terms of which Paul could hope only to receive a small royalty which did not begin until the net profits exceeded a certain amount which the inventor doubted they would reach for some years. This contract had been drawn and signed by John Force, but not yet by Paul, and here a tremendous clash was due to occur. For John, the senior partner and capitalist of large wealth, had virtually agreed with his brother David to enlarge their plant, and now if they were to finance his new shale-oil enterprise in which David had no part, John would be obliged to repudiate this agreement.

HOW David discovered what was going on need not be told. Some fragment of conversation may have been heard by an eavesdropping clerk or bookkeeper in his secret service, or perhaps an examination of the contents of John's waste-paper basket might have revealed certain of his private calculations. It is even possible that John's attorney might have tipped him off. At any rate David had his suspicions of what was afoot and was waiting in grim silence with his decks all cleared for action. Paul had managed to scrape together the money to patent his process and hoped that at the last moment he might be able to extract from John a decent living salary for his services as superintendent of the new enterprise, with an advance on this which might set his family on its feet. John had already secured control of a large area of shale-beds in Colorado where the plant was to be erected, and Paul anticipated with a certain wistful pleasure the removal of his household to a better climate.

The stage was all set for strong action when one sultry June night at about eight o'clock Paul went down to his laboratory in the plant to complete some work in connection with his duties as chemist; he had no fixed hours, these being dependent on the nature of his research in refining processes. The watchman let him in, and as he limped across the yard, with a gait rendered awkward by one foot planted direct and the other turned outward at an angle of eighty degrees, the warm rain began to splash down in huge drops like a tropic shower. Passing the corner of a building, Paul saw that the Forces' private office was lighted.

“Who's there?” he asked the watchman.

“'Tis Mr. David, sor. He has not yet left. I took him some supper about half an hour ago.”

Paul went into his laboratory, and slipping on his gown, set about his work. The rain was now descending in a deluge, and through his open window he could hear the crash of the big rain-spout from the corner of the building opposite in which were the executive offices. He was engaged in weighing some filtrates when Mike, the watchman, came to the door.

“Mr. David would like to speak to you, sor,” said he.

A premonition of trouble struck through Paul. David Force's only greeting of him for the past few days had been a savage scowl, and the inventor was convinced that he suspected something. He put on his shabby hat, threw his mackintosh round his thin shoulders, and limped hurriedly across the muddy yard through the pouring rain. The door of David's office was closed, and at Paul's rap a hard voice snarled: “Come in!”

Paul entered. David Force was standing by the open window, a rank cigar in his mouth and his hands thrust into his trousers pocket. He was a big, gaunt man of forty-five, with a heavy jaw and small bleak eyes set closely on either side of a rapacious nose. He looked precisely what he was, a miser, a hard driver, ruthless, yet supple when circumstance compelled. His brother John was of a different type, being thick-set, red-faced, more self- indulgent but with the same porcine traits. David suggested the wild boar, John the fattened domestic animal. Both had the same heavy jowls and cruel, shifty eyes; but David's temperamental traits were cold and harsh, whereas those of his brother were apt to be hot and choleric.

David's greeting of Paul made no effort at politeness. “Shut the door,” he snarled; and when Paul had done so, and removed his dripping hat and raincoat, David rasped out: “I want to know about this game that you and John are scheming to put across behind my back.”

“Then you'd better ask your brother, sir,” Paul answered.

“Just now I'm asking you,” said David. “I gather that John plans to back this fool invention of yours. Is that so?”

“I can't answer any questions about Mr. John's affairs,” said Paul. “My part of it is the process.”

David gave a harsh, contemptuous laugh

“Yes,” he growled, “you said it! And that's about all the part you're apt to draw from it. I thought you were working for the firm, but it seems you've been working for half of it.”

“I tried to interest you, sir,” said Paul, “but you wouldn't listen.”

“Of course I wouldn't listen to any such bunk. Neither would John have listened but for one thing.” His small eyes glinted evilly at Paul. “Are you such a fool as not to guess that thing?”

Paul stepped to the desk on the other side of which David was standing.

“I can guess what you're trying to insinuate,” he answered.

David's big lower teeth reached for the fringe of his mustache. “I don't insinuate anything,” he growled. “I state it. My fool of a brother is after your fool of a wife.”

A dull fire glowed in Paul's dark eyes. “You're a liar,” he said, “and you know it.” And as he spoke, his thin, sinewy hand fell on a round glass hemisphere the size of half an orange, a paper-weight with a photograph of the works magnified by the convexity.

THE furious outburst which he had half expected from this lie direct did not occur. Perhaps David observed the position of Paul's hand, but more probably he desired to continue his abuse before being violently interrupted.

“You poor worm!” he sneered. “She's out with him tonight. If you don't believe it, go down to the Palais Royale.”

Paul's fingers tightened a little on the paper-weight. He was not entirely surprised at what David had just told him. John had come to his house for discussions several times lately which might just as well have taken place in the laboratory or at John's residence. But while he knew Florence to be frivolous, Paul was not yet willing to believe her faithless. Moreover he saw through David's design. But aside from all the rest, he did not greatly care what Florence did. The children were the tenants of all his heart. So now he answered with a contempt quite equal to that of David:

“If you don't know your brother any better than that, then you're the fool,” he answered. “Can you see John Force risking a lot of money for any woman?”

The effect of this retort was a little surprising even to Paul. David's forbidding face darkened with anger. but he made no hostile gesture toward the chemist. Instead he appeared for a moment to reflect.

“I guess you're right,” he muttered. “John's too damned stingy to risk his pile for any skirt.”

Paul's hand was raised slowly from the table, and his fingers gripped the heavy paper-weight. He looked fixedly at David, and his soft brown eyes held a lurid tint.

“One more slur against my wife and Ill kill you,” said he. Reveur was prepared to carry out his threat. Though crippled from the waist down, his arms were sinewy and strong. He knew that David could not escape the contact of the heavy missile, and there was on the desk a big inkwell with which he might have followed his attack.

But at this moment there came a heavy step outside, and the door was flung open. John Force, in evening-dress, stood on the threshold.

“What's all this?” he demanded in his thick, guttural bass.

Paul turned and looked at him through a red mist.

“Your brother has been trying to get something out of me by making lying charges against you and my wife,” he said.

John Force drew down the corners of his mouth, then gave a grunt.

“My brother's a fool,” he growled. “and so are you. Well, I guess it's time we had a show-down. I had a hunch Brother David might drop in and try to overhaul my papers.” He turned to Paul a face already purpling with anger. “You can beat it.”

THE chemist went out and back to his laboratory.

He sank into a dilapidated wicker chair, rested his elbows on the arms and let his chin fall upon his thin, folded fingers. So the rupture had come, and he thought it probable that the following day would find him out of employment. John Force had told him that with the withdrawal of the bulk of his interest in the plant would come the cessation of his own administration of its affairs, which must then devolve upon David; and Paul could not see himself remaining on David's pay-roll after what had just passed between them. He had hoped that this rupture would not become necessary until the following spring, so that now he found himself faced with the problem of how he might feed and clothe and house his beloved little ones.

Reveur knew that he could expect but little from John until active operations were begun on the new enterprise. John, of course, would not, in his own interest, permit his prospective superintendent actually to starve, but the first trouble for Paul lay in the fact that all of his formulæ and data were so comprehensively complete that his own services would not be indispensable. Any chemical engineer of average intelligence would find no difficulty in following his detailed course of procedure. Yet such an individual would probably demand twice the salary which Paul might consent to accept, and this would always be an item with John Force. But the capitalist had taken pains to assure himself that Paul would not be indispensable to him. And even if the inventor had been crafty enough to leave some hiatus which might render him so, it is probable that John's experts would have discovered it. Aside from getting a good man cheap, John had taken no chances on Paul's physical infirmities.

So now it seemed to the unfortunate inventor that this, his last state, had become more grievous than his former one, that his fetters were more firmly riveted than ever.

In this moment of desperation the hatred he felt for John Force was even greater than that for David. Paul thought of the bleak winter ahead, and his imagination was tortured by pictures of his children with pinched faces and insufficient clothing, and the pitiful aspect of a barren Christmas, and his little Paul crying papers on some sleety corner. In his anguish of soul he remembered having once read in a book of travel that sometimes a Chinaman in straits would sell himself as a substitute for a man of means who had been convicted of crime, and suffer decapitation in his stead. Now for the first time Paul understood how such a thing might be. He felt that he would cheerfully welcome such an opportunity for assuring the future welfare of his little ones, providing it could be honestly achieved. His life was theirs. It had no longer any value to himself.

EVEN if Paul had held the life insurance which was refused him, he would not have stooped to suicide, for he was characterized by an honesty so unequivocal that it amounted almost to a burden. This abnormal probity sat upon him visibly, was undeniable to the most casual eye, just as a profundity of meanness was undisguisable on the face of John Force. It had been this honesty of Paul's which had secured him his position with them, and held it through occasional attacks of illness; for while in actual hours he might not render full service, they were convinced that he would feel himself bound to turn to their benefit whatever discovery he might make which had a direct relation to their products—toilet preparations and synthetic perfumes. Moreover an honest man was indispensable to them as the custodian of such valuable chemicals as the laboratory contained.

Paul roused himself presently at the sound of harsh voices strident with anger. The shower had passed, and the rain stopped so suddenly that the furious wrangling clove the still air as though it were just outside his window. Very evidently a furious quarrel was in progress. Paul could picture David's rage on learning for a certainty that John proposed to withdraw his capital from the plant. It was indeed a stealthy, dishonest thing for John to do, after having verbally agreed to his brother's project for doubling their profitable business; and it smote suddenly upon Paul's desperation how wickedly wrong it was that this dishonest man should be in train to make a huge fortune at the expense of one like himself whose scrupulous convictions had resulted only in a sort of serfdom. And as this idea passed through Paul's mind, there rose within him one of those violent reactions that can only occur with a nature in which some abstract quality is carried to the point of supersaturation.

This is exactly what occurred in the case of Paul Reveur. He found himself suddenly overwhelmed to the point of rejection with a principle which up to this time his nature had contained to its limits. His honesty nauseated him a good deal as a starving man might be nauseated by an excess of food, no matter how wholesome in normal quantities.

He rose, and going to his desk, took out the contract which had been signed by John Force and which he himself was to sign the following day. He scanned it through with a sort of rage; then, seized by a furious impulse, was about to hold the corner of it to his Bunsen burner, when a paragraph caught his eye. And at this moment there came through the open window:

“You damned fat sneak! I'll get you for this yet, if it costs a million dollars.”

Paul drew the contract away from the flame. He examined the paragraph with a searching eye, not for its phrasing but for the typewritten impression. He swiftly counted the lettering, then picked up a pair of dividers and a rule and made a measurement or two. For his mind of the inventor, which is the imaginative mind, had suddenly grasped at a ruse which an hour before would not have entered it; the iron doors of rigid probity would have barred the way.

But these doors were now, for the moment, wide open; and Paul's swift calculations and knowledge of his craft showed him where and how alterations could be made which might make the difference of many thousands in his favor. He knew that such alterations would not trick John, who held his own copy of the contract, by a comparison with which the fraud would be immediately discovered when subjected to expert microscopic examination. But it was not Paul's purpose to attempt the deception of John. He had another and a bigger end in view.

HE set to work upon his alterations with swift and masterly skill. The erasures subtly made, he went to his typewriter, the same model as that used in the business offices, and carefully effected his substitutions, then scanned his work with satisfaction. And scarcely had he finished when the wrangling, abusive voices from across the court ceased suddenly and a door slammed; and glancing through the window, Paul saw John striding toward the gate outside which his car was waiting.

Paul thrust the contract into his pocket, limped out of the laboratory and across to the private office. The door was open, and through it he saw David sitting at his desk, staring straight ahead of him with an expression of such impotent fury on his face that few men would have dared intrude upon his savage meditations.

“Well,” he snarled at sight of Paul, “what do you want now?”

“I want to talk business,” Paul answered. “I've been thinking over what you said about my wife—and your brother John.”

A sudden gleam shone from David's eves. His big head thrust forward a little between the gaunt shoulders.

“Huh!” he grunted. “So the worm has turned!”

“Yes,” said Paul. “I'll take back calling you a liar. I believe you're right. I've got an account to settle with your brother.”

David gave him a sardonic grin. “So John's life's in danger!” said he mockingly, and then quoted with a sneer: “Beware the fury of a maddened sheep.”

“John's life is not in danger,” said Paul, as he perched his frail body on the corner of the desk; “but his chance of making a great fortune is.”

David stared at him with a sort of curious scorn. This astonishing effrontery on the part of the meek, subservient Paul, first in giving him the lie direct and threatening his life, then coming to him, as now, to beard him in his rage and sit with calm insolence on the corner of his desk, bewildered him a little. Nothing would have persuaded him that such cool presumption could ever have found a place in the nature of the little man, and he wondered from what hidden power it drew its strength.

“What's your game?” he demanded.

“To get square with your brother,” Paul answered. “To judge from the compliments you two have been handing back and forth, I guess you'd like a chance to do the same. It wont cost you a million dollars, either, but it might easily make you that, and then some.”

“Are you crazy?” David demanded.

“No. Listen. I've got in my pocket a contract between John Force and myself and signed by him. I am to sign up tomorrow. It is for the promotion of my new process to extract oil from shale. John's got an option on a big acreage in Colorado. But without my process it's no good to him. It would stand him a loss. Do you get that?”

The light of comprehension, and a sudden flame of avarice, spread over David's face. “Go on,” he said.

“Well, then,” said Paul, “here's where you come in. Your brother may or may not have told you that he means to welch on you in the enlargement of this plant and put the money in this proven scheme of mine and of which I hold the patent of the process. That lets you down. John makes the mistake of thinking me a poor worm that would never dare doublecross him, but as you have just remarked, the worm has turned. I intended to sign this contract tomorrow, but after what you so politely told me, I don't intend to sign it at all—with John. But unless you are more of a fool than I think you are, I am prepared to sign it with you.”

David stared at him a moment, started to give a sardonic laugh, then checked himself. He reached out his long gaunt arm and thrust a chair at Paul.

“Sit down!” said he.

Paul shifted himself from the desk, leaned back in the chair and looked thoughtfully at David.

“You are a pretty good business man, Mr. Force,” said he, “but if you will stop a moment to think, you must admit that your brother John is a better one. The proof is that although you are his senior, he is today the head of this plant. He spends more money than you do, but he is a richer man. The reason of this is that John not only knows a good thing when he sees it, but has the nerve to back his judgment. If you had had the running of this plant, your turnover would not be half what it is today You realize this now and are bitterly disappointed and furiously angry because John is going to put the capital for enlarging it into what my tests have convinced him is a scheme which will make this dump of yours look like a piker business.”

“You've got to show me—” growled David.

“I intend to show you. I'd have shown you long ago if you'd had sense enough to let yourself be shown. I've never had any love for either of you, but I hated your brother less, besides considering that he had the better mind. But I hate him now almost as much as you do yourself.”

David gave an inarticulate grunt.

“What I now propose,” said Paul, “is to put the skids under John. We can do this if you are man enough to admit that his business vision is better than your own and take advantage of it You know that he is no plunger, no sanguine speculator. Your knowledge of his methods must tell you that he's got to be dead sure before signing such a big contract as he has with me, and one which will make us both millionaires. What I now propose is that you take this chance to profit by John's work and expense of the past few months. That is to say, I offer you the chance of signing this contract instead of your brother.”

David stared at him owlishly. He had always known that his brother was possessed of a mentality superior to his own, and this had been perhaps the dominant cause of his hatred. Glowering now at Paul, he could feel no doubt of the profundity of the same passion which had made of this humble hireling a sort of concentrated essence of revenge.

“Let's see your contract,” he snarled.

Paul took from his pocket the document which by the terms of his skilled alterations had made him a potential millionaire. David glanced it through, and his heavy jaw dropped while a glaze of astonishment filled his avaricious eyes. He would never have believed it possible that his brother would have ceded so much in any contract, nor that the hitherto meek personality, of which this night had revealed the startling depths, would have stood out for so rich a share. But the fact that this had indisputably occurred now convinced David that here indeed was a priceless opportunity, and for the moment all other emotions were submerged in those of avarice. He forgot that Paul had called him a liar and threatened to brain him with the paper-weight—or rather, perhaps he thought he understood the source of this recklessness. He almost forgot his hatred of his brother and the opportunity offered for the accretion of enormous wealth.

“But I haven't the capital for this—that is, without selling out my interest here.”

“Then sell it out,” said Paul. “Or if you like, I'll offer you another proposition. My health is delicate, and for personal reasons I would discount the money to be made by me in this proposition for a lump sum in cash. You can see from the contract what your brother thinks of it. Well, then, you can buy my patent and give me a ten-per-cent royalty on subsequent profits.”

“What do you want for your patent?” David asked.

“My patent is worth half a million at least,” said Paul, “but I'll sell it to you for two hundred and fifty thousand. That wont break you, or oblige you to lose your interest here. But you'll have to speak quick.”

David glanced again at the contract. “I'll give you a hundred and fifty thousand,” said he.

PAUL shook his head. “Nothing doing!” The answer came faintly. “I'm willing to sacrifice a lot to get square with John, but there are limits.” He folded the contract and put it into his pocket. David stared at him avidly with his small swinish eyes. “You see,” Paul continued, “this thing cuts two ways for you. If you own the patent to the process, you stand not only to make an enormous fortune, but you cut John's underpinning. It would be worth the purchase of the patent to you if only to keep John from withdrawing his interest in the plant. In that case the best investment for his capital would be right here, and he's business man enough to know it.”

David moistened his lips. “Two hundred thousand,” said he.

Paul felt the room reeling about him. Half an hour before he had been at the end of his resources, the little profit to accrue to him from his invention so far in the remote perspective as scarcely to be visible at all. And now through skillfully playing on the passions of hatred and avarice and revenge, and the secret respect which David Force held for his brother's business intelligence, Paul found himself refusing one hundred and fifty thousand dollars and offered two hundred thousand—enough to insure the future well-being of his children in perpetuity.

And the beauty of it was that, although he had gained his ends by trickery and a fraud which, at any other time, his honesty would have refused even to consider, Paul's conviction in the value of his discovery told him that even as it stood no court could find the transaction fraudulent.

He pulled himself together with an effort. “Call it a deal, then,” said he with a weariness which was not assumed. “To include my ten-per-cent royalty, of course! But it's got to be put through immediately. My health is failing, and I want to get away. I'll have the contracts drawn tomorrow, and I shall look for your certified check for two hundred thousand to be handed me on signing up. If you want to make a turnover, the chances are that John will give you a quarter of a million for it.”

“Is there anything that John can do to block it?” David asked.

“No,” Paul answered. “I'll take care of that. But to save trouble, we'll not let John know anything about it until it's done.”

“He wont from me,” said David grimly. rose. “Meet me at Blackwell & law offices tomorrow at two o'clock,” said he, “with your certified check.” And with a brief nod he turned and went out into the still humid night.

PAUL REVEUR was making pretense of working in the laboratory when John Force entered.

“Well,” said the capitalist nervously. “we might as well go round and get our contracts signed up and witnessed. I had it out last night with David, and I guess you're out of a job. He'll be taking over the running of this plant.”

“Let me see the papers,” said Paul listlessly.

John took a long envelope from his pocket, handed it to Paul, then sank heavily into the wicker armchair.

“David raised hell,” said John. “I told him he was making a mistake to fire you before he could get a chemist to take your place. Anyhow it doesn't matter much—”

“No,” murmured Paul, “it doesn't matter much.”

He took the papers and examined them.

“Of course, I'll see that you and the missus and the kids don't suffer until we start our operations,” said John magnanimously.

Paul did not answer. He satisfied himself that the papers were all there. Then is though remembering something, he stepped to the electric furnace. John, watching him indifferently, did not realize what was happening until, like one in a trance, he saw Paul open the furnace door, thrust in the envelope and close the door again.

John gasped and floundered to his feet. “My God!” he roared. “What are you doing? Are you crazy?”

Paul turned and faced him, his dark eyes glowing like the incandescent heart of the furnace. His hand slipped into the side pocket of his coat.

“The deal is off,” said he quietly.

“Wha-wha-what?” panted John, his face purpling, veins distended on forehead and temples, and a murderous light streaming from his eyes.

“I say that our deal is off,” said Paul slowly, and met John's stare with one of such abysmal hatred that the fires in John's eyes were quenched. “I'd starve and see my family starve before I'd pour money into the pockets of a swine like you Do you see this?”

He drew his hand from his pocket, and in it lay an automatic pistol. “Well, if I ever see you talking to my wife again, I'll pour its contents into you.”

He picked up his hat and went out of the laboratory and crossed the yard, at the gate of which a taxi was waiting for him. Giving the address of the well-known law-firm, Paul sank back and tried to control the hammering of his heart.

It did not take long to draw up the necessary papers, including the assignment of the patent process and the contract by which Paul was to receive his royalties. The business was being concluded when David entered. He looked at Paul with a peculiar expression on his sardonic face.

“John seems upset this morning,” he, and gave a wolfish grin.

“Maybe he'll feel better when he learns that you kept the proposition in the family,” Paul answered—at which David laughed outright. It occurred to Paul that probably this would be the last laugh in which this other object of his hatred was apt to indulge for a very long time to come.

The business was quickly concluded, and as Paul placed the certified check in his pocket, he turned to David.

“Now you might go back and rub it into John,” said he. “But don't let anything he says upset you. No contract is valid until it's signed and witnessed—” And David was puzzled at the extraordinary expression which crossed the of his late employee.

Paul proceeded to the Trust Company, where he deposited his check to a new account and at once drew a considerable sum of money. He also rented a small safe-deposit box in which he locked up his contract with David. Then signaling a taxi, for not only did he feel suddenly weak but also able to afford the luxury, he was driven out to his small, shabby house in the shabby suburb where it stood.

Through the window his wife saw him and was struck with alarm at the pallor of his face and his unaccustomed means of transportation. She flew out and down the steps and passed a robust arm around him

“Are you ill, dear?” she asked solicitously, for beneath her selfish frivolity she was not unkind.

Paul Reveur did not answer. He permitted himself to be assisted into the house. The baby was asleep, and the elder children still at school. Sinking into a chair, he looked up at his wife with shining eyes.

“I've signed my contract,” he said.

Florence looked dismayed. “Oh, Paul!” she said. “I'm so sorry. I tried to get you on the phone, but you had left the plant.”

“What did you want?”

“I meant to beg you not to sign.”

“Why not?”

A sudden color flamed in her pretty face. “Because I could not bear to think of your pouring money into the pockets of John Force.”

“You seem to have changed your mind about him,” Paul muttered.

Her color deepened, but her eyes rested steadily on his.

“I have,” she answered. “I thought he wanted to be a friend. He told me last night when you were at the laboratory. But this morning, after you had left, he came here, and—I learned what his friendship would be worth. I told him never to come near us again, and then I tried to get you on the telephone and tell you not to sign and not to work for him another hour—no, not if it meant starvation.” The tears gushed into her eyes. “Oh, Paul, now you've gone and signed!”

PAUL rose, his face radiant, and caught her in his arms.

“It's all right, dear,” said he. “I've signed—but not with John. Now go and pack.”

“Pack?”

“Yes. We're going to the seashore. But wait a minute. I'd better call up the office and tell David Force that he'll have to hire another chemist.”

He limped to the telephone, got the connection and said: “This is Mr. Paul Reveur. I want to speak to Mr. David Force.”

The answer came in agitated tones.

“You'll have to call him at his house—but I don't believe he'll answer. There's been some trouble and he's—he's gone home sick.”