Marvin tripped to the station and took the two o’clock train. He was
almost as excited as if he were an alchemist beholding the actual
projection of gold. Release two charges of positive electricity from 82
and get 80, one negative from 80 and get 81, two positive from 81 and
get 79, which is gold. When that process is effected, the energy
released will turn all the wheels of earth with effortless ease, and the
gold can be thrown away.
By five o’clock the next afternoon he had calmed down a little, though
when he burst in on his mother she hardly knew him, so strong and
bronzed and radiant did he seem.
She explained that his father was at Upper Encampment recovering from a
burn and that Marvin’s presence was required there by the first boat.
She handed him Grein’s letter, and they read it together, as in his
childhood they had read of Aladdin and the lamp. Then she telephoned his
father’s office to have the accumulated business mail sent at once to
the boat.
When she came back to him from the telephone, he drew the silvery head
close to his heart and told her the whole truth about Gratia and about
Jean.
They would have talked on for an hour, but she hurried him into the car
and off to the boat. There he found that he still had a little time, and
decided to improve it by calling up Jimmy.
In this however he failed. Jimmy’s landlady, in answer to the request
that he might speak with Mr. Hogg, declared that he was hard to speak
with; that he was upstairs writing a speech.
Jimmy writing a speech? Impossible! James Endicott Hogg had never in his
life been known to make a speech.