It filled his head with dreams: of a woman dwelling by right in this house of his, and making the air fragrant by her presence.

But as the woman--although he tried his utmost to prevent it and to conjure up the form of a totally different type--took the shape of Zora Middlemist, he discouraged such dreams as making more for mild unhappiness than for joy, and bent his thoughts to his guns and railway carriages and other world-upheaving inventions.

The only thing that caused him any uneasiness was an overdraft at his bank due to cover which he had to pay on shares purchased for him by a circularizing bucket-shop keeper.

It had seemed so simple to write Messrs.

Shark & Co., or whatever alias the philanthropic financier assumed, a check for a couple of hundred pounds, and receive Messrs.